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This oral history interview is based on the memories and opinions of the subject being interviewed. As such, it is subject to the innate fallibility of memory and is susceptible to inaccuracy. All researchers using this interview should be aware of this reality and are encouraged to seek corroborating documentation when using any oral history interview.
Arkansas Memories Project
Interview with:
Al Witte
4 April 2008 Fayetteville, Arkansas
Interviewers: Peggy Williams and Scott Lunsford
[00:00:00.00]
Scott Lunsford: Okay. Today’s date is, what? April . . .
Joy Endicott: April fourth.
SL: April fourth, 2008. Our first interviewer today is Peggy [“P.J.”] . . .
JE: Williams
SL: . . . Williams, and we’re returning back to Al Witte at the Al Witte residence here
in Fayetteville, Arkansas. This recording is for the David and Barbara Pryor Cen-
ter for Arkansas Oral and Visual History. It will reside in the Special Collections
Department at the Mullins Library. Copies of the—of these interviews will actu-
ally also reside at the University of Arkansas Law School. And, Al, I have to ask
you at this point in time if it’s all right with you that we’re back here today and
that we’re videotaping this interview.
[00:00:54.08] Al Witte: It’s—yes, I’m—I’m very happy to see you again.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 1 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: All right. [Laughs] Well, thank you very much. So, Peggy, I’m gonna let you
get this thing going and . . .
Peggy Williams: Wonderful.
SL: . . . I’ll try not to interrupt. [Laughter]
PW: Please do—any time.
SL: And you all have fun.
[00:01:07.11] PW: Well, Al, last time we talked I believe we—we had ended the con-
versation in about 1956, and . . .
AW: [19]57.
PW: [19]57.
AW: Yes, it was, as much as I remember, early September, and a—a memorable time
because I left the day after Governor [Orval] Faubus called out the National
Guard to interfere with the entrance of nine black students to Central High School
in Little Rock, an event which still resonates from time to time, both in Arkansas
and—and in other places.
JE: Phones?
SL: My phone?
JE: Probably. Thank you. Sorry.
[00:01:49.11] AW: And so I arrived here, as I remember, on a Saturday in early Sep-
tember 1957. I think I might start with my first two days here because they live in
memory still quite vividly. I—I brought with me a used portable typewriter—cost
me $12, but it didn’t work. So I thought—I wondered—it was about 1:00 on Sat-
urday. I hadn’t had lunch, and I thought, “I wonder if there’s a typewriter repair
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 2 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ place in—in Fayetteville,” and after checking into the small apartment I had—that
had—the dean had arranged for me to live in, about 1:00 in the afternoon I went
out carrying my portable typewriter looking for a place to get it repaired and—
and have lunch. And the first part was easy. I went down Block Street towards
the [Fayetteville] Square, and there was a store that said, “typewriter repair.” And
so I parked the car right in front and got out—went over, and the door was open,
but there was no one in sight. But I heard some voices in a back room and so I
yelled, “Is anybody here?” And the voice said, “Come on back.” And so I went
back, and three men sitting there. Turned out two of ’em [them] were the owners
of the typewriter store and the third was a salesman from Oklahoma City. And
they were drinking some bourbon whiskey—I think it was Jim Beam—and they
were mixing it with Coca-Cola, which offended me aesthetically. But, on the oth-
er hand, if that’s all you’ve got, that’s all you’ve got. And the first words were,
“Would you like a drink?” Well, I wanted to get the typewriter repaired at the
lowest possible price, so I didn’t want to offend them. And I said, “Okay,” and
he—he did—we did arrange for me to have the typewriter fixed. But the next
thing I knew it was about 6:00 at night and they—they said, “It’s your turn to go
get the Coca-Colas.” And they had meanwhile brought out another quart of bour-
bon. So that was my last conscious memory until the next morning, when I woke
up in my car, still out in front of the typewriter place. And I was a little hung
over. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining. The—there were birds
and then there were church bells that were ringing, and that’s what woke me up—
or perhaps it was the policeman who was kind of tapping on the door and looking
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 3 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ at me and saying, “Are you all right?” And I said, “Yes. Yes, sir, I am. I’m—I
was just taking a little nap before I went to church.” And he said, “Okay,” and let
me off, so to speak. Eventually, I got back to where I was staying, and that night I
got a call from the dean saying would I like to have dinner with him and his wife,
Dr. [Robert] Leflar and his wife, and the dean of the college of arts and sciences.
I was very hung over, and . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[00:05:35.26] AW: . . . the night—the dinner is still a little mysterious to me, but I
found myself in the middle—I went from the typewriter venue to the—the biggest
players in the Fayetteville academic establishment. Dean Guerdon Nichols, leg-
endary dean of the college of arts and sciences, Dr. Leflar, their wives, and a
woman known as Mrs. Laird Archer, whose husband had been a big-shot of sorts
with the United Nations and the UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scien-
tific and Cultural Organization] Program in Europe—especially Greece. But in
her prior existence she’d been known as Mrs. Julian Waterman, the widow of our
first dean. And so there I was with these people—totally unable to function.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:06:34.06] AW: Listening to them discuss Orval Faubus, what—what President
[Dwight David] Eisenhower’s reaction to Faubus’s conduct had to be, the uphold-
ing of federal power—anyway, it was an interesting thirty-six hours’ [laughter]
introduction to Fayetteville.
PW: [Laughs] That’s quite an intro into the city.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 4 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yeah, so I—I remembered that all. I became a good friend of one of the typewrit-
er people, Ed Davis, who had tried to make it as a—as a baseball—professional
baseball player—a pitcher, but had never gotten very high up in the minor
leagues. But we used to talk about that and we played golf together in later years.
Fine man. I remember him with nothing but pleasure. But that has nothing really
much to do with why I came here, and that was to start teaching school. And the
law school in those days was as so dramatically different. The world’s so—has
changed so much that if you are from a younger generation you have a hard time
visualizing what life was like.
[00:07:50.17] PW: What was your first memory of the law . . .?
AW: Well, my first—my first impression was—first of all, the building was quite nice
for the circumstances. [AW clears his throat] Excuse me. But what happened
was that the law school had always been kind of an abandoned child on the cam-
pus. They’d—they had operated out of the basement of Old Main for years as a—
that was the law school.
PW: Wow.
[00:08:18.16] AW: They had operated out of an old building, now torn down, that later
became the journalism building, and so on, called Hill Hall. They had never had a
home of their own until Dr. Leflar went to the [Arkansas] Legislature and struck a
bargain, and that was if he’d raise a certain amount of money on his own from
lawyers and so on, the Legislature would sort of batch it and they would use that
money to build Waterman Hall. And so finally—so he—he—he spent a lot of
time just going—every city, town and village in—in Arkansas begging for mon-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 5 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ ey—finally got enough to satisfy the Legislature, and they—they started to build
the—the—the first law school. Interestingly enough, they ran out of money—the
contractor did—and they had a—it was—the bonding company had to pay for the
completion of Waterman Hall. But I always thought that was a—it’s in the Ar-
kansas Supreme Court reports that the dispute that arose between the contractor
and the insurance company involving getting the building finished, so that’s . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[00:09:37.17] AW: . . . of some remote interest. But it was only three years old when I
got here, so it was still considered sort of new. Dr. Leflar up until that time had
been the dean of the law school.
PW: Uh-huh.
AW: But he had this arrangement that he later spent many years fulfilling with the New
York University. Later on, what he would do is teach here in the fall semester
and then go to New York University for the spring semester and the summer ses-
sion. But when he decided to do that, he wanted to arrange for his successor, and
he persuaded one of our men, Joe Covington, who meanwhile had gone to the
heights of second in command at the university. In those days there was a presi-
dent and the second in command was called a provost. Joe Covington was prov-
ost, and it says something about Dr. Leflar’s persuasion, that he persuaded Joe to
take a step down and become dean of the law school . . .
PW: Hmm.
[00:10:56.21] AW: . . . which he did. And meanwhile—so then Leflar made that ar-
rangement. So when I got here, Joe Covington was the dean. He was the one that
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 6 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ hired me. I had nothing but affection and respect for him. He was a—he and I
were not alike in personality, but he—he was totally 100 percent professional. He
was demanding, but he was fair—considerate, and it was with a great sense of
disappointment that—that he in the second semester I was here—spring of
[19]58—he took a job with the University of Missouri as their dean, and there he
stayed for the rest of his life, ’cause he—I thought he was a great loss, especially
since he had a great career at the University of Missouri. And I might add as a
footnote that he was instrumental in creating the multi-state bar examination . . .
PW: Oh.
[00:11:54.12] AW: . . . procedure. He headed it up, in fact, at the beginning, and for
many years thereafter. So it was interesting—by then, Dr. Leflar—when—when
Dean Covington decided to leave, that Dr. Leflar took over, and we were fear-
ful—he was fearful that Governor Faubus had an attorney general named Bruce
Bennett, whose reputation was not of the highest. And he was afraid that either
Bruce or some cohort of his who was even of less repute would be forced on us as
dean. So Dr. Leflar called a meeting of the faculty and persuaded us to support a
man named Ralph Barnhart, who was a member of the faculty, to be the dean and
told us how it was all going to work and we would each be asked to go over one
by one and talk to the new provost and give him our opinion about who should be
the dean and had us—I know he had me. I’m brand new at the place. I didn’t
know the ins and outs of anything. And I—Mr. Barnhart—Professor Barnhart
should be the dean, and so on. And so that’s what happened. Barnhart became
the dean and served there for the next thirteen, fourteen years, I think.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 7 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: And he became . . .
[00:13:16.00] AW: Through all of the [19]60s and several years in the [19]70s.
PW: He became dean in nineteen fifty- . . .
AW: Yes, he was dean, as I say, over ten years.
PW: . . . eight?
AW: I’d—I would guess twelve to fourteen. So that was the—the first—that—those
were the—my formative years here. As far as the curriculum and the students
were concerned, the curriculum was quite different then. Many of the materials
that we study today were really not even in existence. There was no interest in
things like environmental law, products liability, law in medicine—that sort of
thing. That just hadn’t yet been foreseen.
PW: Hmm. What . . .?
AW: Go ahead.
[00:14:04.23] PW: When you—when you first arrived, what was the core curriculum
then?
AW: Well, the core curriculum was pretty steady. It was—I mean, pretty convention-
al—contracts, property, torts, criminal law, constitutional law, evidence. They
had a lot more required courses and courses—excuse me, like conflicts of law
were required. Of course, that was Dr. Leflar’s pet subject—the one that made
him famous, really. And the required curriculum has changed dramatically over
the years. Evidence would be required and that sort of thing. The—the teaching
load was so different. There were only six or seven of us. Let me see if I can re-
member my colleagues. The oldest in point of service was a man—well, it was,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 8 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ of course, Dr. Leflar, but he was really—I can’t say part-time, but he was in and
out—one semester a year. [AW clears his throat] Excuse me. A man named Ed
Meriweather joined the faculty in 1930, a very—sort of grandfatherly type. Phys-
ically, he was—students called him Mr. Five-by-Five—he [was] kinda built like
Humpty Dumpty. And he—he was also known as Judge Pudge, which the judge
part was an honorary title. Fine, fine man. Never married. Was independently—
I don’t want to say wealthy—but comfortable beyond his salary. And so he—
pretty reliable rumor had it that he—he would help students in financial need, you
know? He’d pay their tuition or give ’em some money to get by on in those defla-
tionary days. And he was also—if you needed a B to graduate, you might let the
judge know it and take a course from him, because you were gonna get a B to
graduate. [Laughs] That sort of thing. He was the—he was the students’ friend.
They were very fond of him. He didn’t work very hard. They used to—used to
find it amusing that his citations to Arkansas statutes were from the set known as
Kirby and [Paige?], which had quit publishing in the 1890s.
[Tape Stopped]
[00:16:44.17] AW: I was speaking of Professor Meriweather. What I remember about
him personally is he lived with his mother, who was a wonderful woman, and
he—students—former students would send him ducks and quail and that that
they’d massacred . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . on some hunting trip and he’d—and she knew how to cook all that sort of
thing, and I—I—I’ve been their guest several times, but—to have that kind of
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 9 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ dinner. And she—she was a—I wish I’d known her better. She was a remarkable
woman. He died in 1965, and I think that was his thirty-fifth year here. He came
in . . .
PW: Wow.
[00:17:41.00] AW: . . . 1930. So very—sort of man you’d like to have as a colleague,
and the students, as I say, really appreciated his efforts to help them. The next
oldest—I think I’m trying to remember accurately—was Ralph Barnhart, who did
become the dean in 1958 and, as I say, served ‘til sometime in the early [19]70s.
And I think he was from Ohio. I know he graduated from the University of Cin-
cinnati. And he had—he had met I want to—I think it was either Dr. Leflar or
Dean Waterman during World War II, because he was also was part of the Japa-
nese relocation, they called it—the concentration camp program, if you want to be
a—a tad realistic. They interned Japanese people during World War II, and they
had these camps around the country—two of ’em in Arkansas [in Jerome and
Rohwer]. Both Dean Waterman and Dr. Leflar had been involved—Dr. Leflar
was the lawyer for the Japanese internees.
PW: Wow.
[00:19:00.00] AW: And I think as—my memory of Barnhart had worked at one out
West, and they knew each other. So when the war was over he was hired here
and spent the rest of his professional career here. He died several years ago [in
2004]. Then I know there was a man named Ray Trammell, who was a native of
Arkansas, graduate of the law school, and had stayed on during World War II. I
think he was 4-F [unsuitable for military service], is my—it’s at least my guess—
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 10 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ during the war, so he didn’t go into service and was like assistant professor and
assistant to the dean and that sort of thing, and—or I think he also worked in the
library. When I got here, to show you how simple the times were, they had—
there was no university general counsel. The university didn’t even have its own
lawyer, and he was very proud of the fact that he had just been hired and given ten
percent credit for being [laughter]—for being—that is, to say ten percent of his
time could be devoted to university matters. Over the next half a dozen years or
so, that increased—increased regularly, and finally sometime in the 1960s he be-
came the full-time general counsel and quit teaching entirely. But he—he was a
full-time member of the faculty when I got here. I have a feeling I’m missing
somebody. But the man that I was closest to was Fred Spies, who—from Read-
ing, Pennsylvania—a man of whom I—I—I still think often, though he’s been
dead now a long time—over twenty years—died much too young from your
friend and mine, cigarettes. But he had a likeable—even lovable personality. His
son lives here in Fayetteville and is an anesthesiologist—very, very bright young
man. I’ve known him since he was a little boy. So Fred—Fred was—and I were
both Pennsylvanians. He’d—he had come here the year before me, so he never
let me forget that he was senior in status in—if not in years, he used to point out.
But— [AW clears his throat] Excuse me.
[00:21:34.21] PW: I’ve heard some remarkable stories about you and Fred and . . .
AW: Yeah. Well, he—he was—he was a—he was an enthusiastic—he was the sort of
person that when he walked in a room you felt good, ’cause he brought kind of a
joy and a laughter with him. His main claim to fame was he was really the—I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 11 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ think the number one—I don’t know what I’m talking about—ham radio person
in the state. And he, in fact, inveigled some sort of position out of, I want to say
Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, that—that in case the Russians invaded—well,
what, Mena?
PW: [Laughs]
[00:22:23.24] AW: Or Texarkana—someplace—they would call on Fred to alert the
state . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . to that fact. I—I—[Ida Kay?], I think, were his call letters, and he used to
torment us all. But it was a very interesting feature. You’d go over to his house
and he would be talking to people in Antarctica, and I think this was illegal, but
he was trying to connect up somebody down in Antarctica with their—maybe,
say, wife or parents in California, you know, using him as a relay. It was all be-
yond my understanding. But he did that, and he was the greatest amateur garden-
er I’ve ever known. I used to tell people he could grow strawberries out of a
sidewalk. He just had the green thumb. And he was a piano player. He just had a
lot of facets to his—he claimed he played a piano in a bar in New Orleans [Loui-
siana]. I can’t believe he did, but . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . I couldn’t disprove it.
[00:23:30.27] PW: I’ve heard something about some law school skits that the two of
you . . .
AW: Yeah. Well, we did skits, except he never contributed anything.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 12 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: [Laughs]
AW: I had to do all the work. But that was Fred. And, as I say, I still miss him. I vis-
ited his home in Reading and saw the—saw where he came from, and it was
quite, quite interesting—his family were among the affluent members of that so-
ciety going way back into the 1700s, and they lived in a house that was built in
1830. It was—it was a world that I hadn’t seen before. Fred loved seafood. He
once bicycled from Reading to Atlantic City [New Jersey] when he was a teenage
boy. He never—he never really participated in things that most guys do growing
up—sports and all that—’cause he was a sickly child . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
[00:24:27.28] AW: . . . and bedridden for a year or two, and that’s how he became in-
terested in ham radio. But, as you can see, he was my favorite. And we did—
well, we lived across the street from each other. Our kids were similar ages
and—and so on. But he moved to Little Rock. He—he developed a great interest
in law and medicine, and he got a joint appointment at the med school [Reference
to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences] and the law school in Little
Rock. He was teaching law to doctors, which must’ve been a hopeless . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[00:24:59.02] AW: . . . enterprise. But just to sum up my relationship with him—is I
was visiting Little Rock and I found out that he had an office in the med school.
And so I got his number and I called, and his secretary answered the phone and
said, “Dr. Spies’ office.” Now, this is the med school. He is not a medical doc-
tor.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 13 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: [Laughs]
[00:25:19.10] AW: But this—there was a fraud involved there, and I told him when I
was coming out to see, and that if he was wearing a white coat and a stethoscope,
I was gonna have him arrested. But . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . in any event, that was Fred. And I—as you can tell, he’s still vivid in my
memory.
[00:25:37.02] PW: Is there any one particular experience that just—when you all were
colleagues that . . .?
AW: Well, let me think about it. I might come back to that. I—I’m not prepared to—
to specify. I don’t know. Fred was very short and bald. He—I think he was bald
for every day of his life.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:26:00.11] AW: So I will tell one story, and that is there was a famous refugee from
[Adolph] Hitler’s Germany—a law professor named Wolfgang von Friedman,
who had emigrated from Germany to Columbia University in the 1930s, where he
became a star in international law. Fred took a course from Wolfgang when he
was a law student, and so they became friends. Now, years later, Fred is a law
professor here and Wolfgang’s still at Columbia, and we’re having the law pro-
fessors’ convention, also known as the Association of American Law Schools
convention in the Edgewater Hotel in Chicago [Illinois]. Fred walks into the
men’s room and is standing over a urinal. Wolfgang walks in behind him—and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 14 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Wolfgang was a very tall man—and he bends over and he kisses Fred on his bald
head.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:27:06.04] AW: In the men’s room, with other men at other urinals. And Fred’s
response was—he looked up, kind of embarrassed and shaken, and said to the
others, just as if to reassure them. He said, “Well, it’s okay.” He said, “He’s a
friend of mine.” [Laughter] I treasure that memory. [Laughter] “It’s okay. He’s
a friend of mine.” Well, enough of that. I was a single man when I got here, and
my first friends—also single and also for—interesting enough, courting the wom-
en that they all married and are still married to. And, fortunately for them, all of
them courting women who were vastly their superior in . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[00:27:51.02] AW: . . . intelligence, beauty, character, and whatever other qualities
you consider important. The first alphabetically was Phil Anderson, who’s now
the head partner in a prestigious Little Rock law firm—married Missy Wright,
whose father was the legendary Ed Wright of Little Rock lawyer fame, American
Bar Association fame. And Ed Wright was president of the American Bar Asso-
ciation and later on his son-in-law ascended to that order. I don’t know if you can
bequeath that title to your youngsters, but in any event, that’s Phil. A man of
great—sense of humor. Very natural. He was a campus leader. I think he was
president of the student body or senior class or whatever they run for. If he
wasn’t, he should have been. He’s that type of person. From Marked Tree, Ar-
kansas. John Stroud, who later be—ascended to one of the appellate courts, and I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 15 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ really can’t remember whether it was the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals. It
could’ve been both at different times. And he married Marietta Kimball of De-
light, Arkansas. They are a legendary couple for several reason, including the—
the good nature they bring everywhere with them, and just a sense of fun. And
his running buddy, Hays McClurkin, whose wife was Lill Riggs, from the—I
want to say International Harvester or Caterpillar [Riggs Caterpillar] empire
headquartered in Little Rock.
PW: Wow.
[00:29:57.22] AW: And Hays then became a very distinguished oil and [natural] gas
lawyer—practiced all over the country in those places where they have oil and
gas. And they—those were my first friends. All—we were all bachelors.
There—they rented a house out on Baxter Lane and that’s where all the action
was, as they say, and—and then one of the guys that hung around of there was
Willis B. Smith, also of Texarkana. I should mention that John and Hays became
partners in Texarkana and kind of started the Texarkana Mafia, which not in-
cludes people like Damon Young and Nick Patton and others of great accom-
plishment—later-generation lawyers. And Willis Smith married Patty Fulbright,
niece to the senator. [Reference to Senator J. William Fulbright] And—and they
also are still happily married down there. It—it—all of which is quite remarkable
to me, considering I think Arkansas is one of the top divorce states in—in the
world.
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 16 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [00:31:11.01] AW: But they were—they were—they were all very nice to me. They—
they—they kind of—I got accepted by the typewriter world on my first day and I
got accepted by the law school world shortly thereafter. And all of that was very
important to me psychologically, and it helps explain why I came here not expect-
ing to stay. I thought I’d be here a couple years, go off to grad[uate] school, and
try to head for the big time, and—and I didn’t. And it—it has—there has to be
reasons in there, and you—you’re never entirely sure what they are. But some-
how to me I’ve always felt it was my first days here and the way I was received
by the people here.
[00:32:04.07] PW: And these friends of yours—they were your students.
AW: Oh, yeah, they were my students. They were older. See, I know—both Hays
and—and John, I think, had been Air Force pilots during the Korean [War] thing,
so they—they—they were not fresh out of the fraternity world.
[00:32:22.02] PW: So what—what kind of things did you all do when you—when you
interacted, like outside of class?
AW: Well, the—well, I remember parties at their house. I met—they were—they—
they—they were all outstanding students here in the sense that everybody knew
them and liked them and respected them. And so they were the center of things.
They were really—as their later careers showed, they were just good people to
know and they had a lot of ability. The—I met Bob Wright—Robert Wright,
who’s died recently and who had a wonderful career in the law here. He graduat-
ed I think a couple years before I came here and then went on to graduate school
at the University of Virginia. And then he was practicing law over in, I think,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 17 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Forrest City and somewhere in there, which is, I think, pretty close to where he
originated. But Bob, you know, later on became a professor here and then he be-
came dean at [University of] Oklahoma. Then he came back and was Donaghey
Distinguished Professor for many years at—at University of Arkansas Law
School in Little Rock. And, of course, his wife is well known—Susan Webber
Wright—former member of the faculty—graduate of our place and—and now a
distinguished federal judge—district judge. So it’s—you know, Arkansas then
was such a small world, and I always thought that it wasn’t very difficult to get to
know almost everybody that had been to school here. The—the enrollment here
when I came, I think, was 4,500 people. Well, that’s . . .
PW: Wow.
[00:34:15.04] AW: . . . there were only ninety-nine students in the entire law school.
PW: Oh, wow.
AW: So you had different relationships than you do now, where you—where you
have—I’ve had classes in later years that had 180 to 200 students. I don’t re-
member any of them. I remember all of these people, you know? The world was
so different. It’s hard for me to describe, other than in that vague way. But I—
but if I wanted to go to—they had parties every weekend, you know—nothing big
deal—just beer and—which I don’t drink anyway. And we—we—we—I started
a bowling team, the Legal Beagles. And because I started it, I was captain
[laughs] and also I had the power of the grade over them. But other than that—
but other—other people—Beryl Anthony from El Dorado, later a very distin-
guished member of Congress, married Sheila Foster, older—older sister of Vince
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 18 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Foster. Nick Patton, who I’ve mentioned before—great, great lawyer out of Tex-
arkana. Jay Dickey, who was a congressman . . .
PW: Wow.
[00:35:45.06] AW: . . . in the same district that Beryl had earlier represented was on it.
And some other men I’ll mention later in different context. And we—so we—you
know, we had all those—we played golf. The Springdale Country Club was a lit-
tle nine-hole place, and—and you could walk in off the street. It wasn’t private.
And pay a dollar or something to play nine holes. It was a—as I say, that’s what
we did. We—we partied. We did a few athletic things. Oh, and we played cards.
The first year I was here the students put on a skit, and in those days—I gather it
was mostly a Southern thing. But they would have these little fifteen- or thirty-
minute radio shows where there was singing. It was pretty much all singing. And
they’d have a moderator who’d introduce the songs and the singers and—and so
the students put on a mock radio show of that period. And Phil Anderson was—
was a member—a member of the group, and I can still remember some of the
songs. For Fred Spies, I’ve mentioned, they did the Mickey Mouse song. F-R-E-
D-D-I. I don’t know. Something . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[00:37:21.18] AW: For Dean Covington they did a Gilbert and Sullivan song, “If of
Dr. Leflar you stand in awe, they will make you dean of the school of law,” were
the opening lines for that one. And they did some hymn for Dr. Leflar, which I’m
drawing a blank on. But I can vividly remember mine. It was—it was a group—a
trio known as the Maguire Sisters.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 19 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Uh-huh.
[00:37:54.21] AW: And their big song was “Sugar in the morning, sugar in the even-
ing,” or something to that effect and . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . the opening lines for me were, “Classes in the morning, golf in the evening,
poker at suppertime.”
PW: [Laughs]
AW: “He’s our newest professor, playing all the time.” Now, how would you like that?
PW: [Laughs]
AW: After one year.
PW: Was that true?
AW: So that was the image I had created.
[00:38:27.05] PW: Was that an—was that an accurate picture? [Laughs]
AW: Yes. So far as it went. It did not mention that I was trying desperately not to be a
fool in class. And in order to do that I had to stay up late at night working on to-
morrow’s assignment.
[00:38:50.10] PW: Well, let me take you back to when you first started teaching. What
did you do? What were your feelings . . .
AW: Well, the . . .
PW: . . . when you first began to teach at law school?
AW: No one today would believe it. You know, it’s the old “I had to walk twelve
miles to school, uphill both ways.” First of all, I was—unlike today’s genera-
tion—believe me, I couldn’t get a job today. I couldn’t even be interviewed for a
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 20 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ job today. I had zero preparation. The arrogance—the hidden arrogance of think-
ing that just because I had graduated from one law school, I could teach at anoth-
er, with zero preparation, you know, would make people in the Department of
Education commit suicide to think—if they knew that.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:39:44.15] AW: They said to me, “Well, this—you got this job because a profes-
sor’s leaving. He taught, so you’re gonna teach his courses.” That was the first
thing. His courses in the first—the first semester were four hours of constitutional
law. I hadn’t paid a whole lot of attention in constitutional law as a student,
and—so I have to teach it. I have, like, a week to get ready. Do you understand
what a—? I’m reading these cases, many for the first time.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:40:17.24] AW: But I’m gonna teach tomorrow. The second—“You’re gonna
teach a course called Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure.” I knew nothing about
federal jurisdiction or procedure.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: That was a four-hour course. That’s eight hours of teaching in the first semester.
And you’d say, “Well, that’s really challenging, especially when you have zero
preparation.” When I’m—when I’m—by then—I mean, nobody told me whether
you lectured or asked questions, the so-called Socratic method. Nobody told me
anything about how to approach it. But, in addition, I also taught a course called
legal bibliography, which is today is subsumed in legal writing. But I had a—
every—every class day I had to wheel a carrel full of books into class and lecture
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 21 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ on how do you use CJS [Corpus Juris Secundum] and American Jurisprudence
and ALRs [American Law Reports] and . . .
PW: Wow.
[00:41:20.15] AW: And—and I—I was—that was also part of the—that was a one-
hour course. Then I was in charge of the jury trial program that law school stu-
dents had to complete before they graduated, and also the appellate advocacy pro-
gram.
PW: You had your hands full.
AW: The—yeah. And—and that was the first semester.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:41:42.12] AW: Now, the second semester I had to teach a course called adminis-
trative law. Do you understand I had to learn the course and I’ve never taught it
since?
PW: [ ]. [Laughs]
[00:41:51.01] AW: So how’s that like—for climbing up—climbing up the hill just for
the pleasure of walking back down again. And I can’t remember, but I think I had
to teach something like bankruptcy or creditors rights also in the second semester.
And what was lovely about that is the next year I didn’t teach any of those courses
except con [constitutional] law . . .
PW: Good Lord. [Laughs]
[00:42:15.16] AW: . . . because Dean Covington had taught contracts and the day I
found out he had left, I ran in and asked, “Could I teach contracts?” And nobody
else was around, so he said, “Okay.” So the next year I taught entirely new thing.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 22 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ And that went on. It—I’d say the first five years here I taught local government
law, bankruptcy, creditors rights, and all these others.
PW: Oh, my . . .
[00:42:42.19] AW: . . . from time to time. And was always up in the office late at
night, as I say, trying to see what Corbin had to say or Williston had to say or
somebody could help me out. This—later on, these same students I became
friends with used to tease me. They said I—in—in constitutional law I called on
the same student thirty-eight straight days. [Laughter] He later became chief jus-
tice. Richard Adkinson, not At[kinson]. A-D-K-I—well, I never got to—I was so
nervous I never got below the first name on the alphabet. [Laughs]
PW: Poor Adkinson.
[00:43:29.25] AW: Poor Adkinson. [Laughter] And I didn’t—I wasn’t aware of it.
You know, I just—I wouldn’t have done it if I were. But I was so nervous and
trying—and trying to keep my job.
[00:43:40.11] PW: What was your style as a teacher? What style did you develop as a
law teacher? Were you hard or easy on students?
AW: I think I was—I think after—I think even from day one I was kind of a what I
would call the smart-alecky, sarcastic, and what used to be the—the terror method
of yelling at students and telling ’em how stupid they are. You have to remember
that of the ninety-nine students in law school when I got here, one was a woman
who never graduated. Nobody even really knew what class she—what year she
really was. I never had her as a student and she never graduated. Dean Rhonda
Adams knows all about this ’cause she looked her up for me one time. And there
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 23 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ was one black male and ninety-seven while males. So how do white males treat
each other was the way—I mean, especially if you’re the lead dog, you know?
You—I mean, my—my stock phrase years later is—with—with white males—
they have no feelings, and if they do, they shouldn’t.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:45:04.24] AW: And—and so that’s how you—it never occurred to me to be nice.
PW: I’ve heard.
AW: It didn’t even occur. I mean, it wasn’t part of the world. Now, that’s the world I
had come out of, too. I remember my procedure teacher, Abner Brody—about
this tall—and he had us so terrified, I used to say that I sat in his class and my bot-
tom never touched the chair.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:45:30.27] AW: I was ready to leap out of there as soon as he got after me and run.
And that’s the way it was—the terror method. You were scared to death at all
times, until you developed a certain arrogance—if you did.
[00:45:46.24] PW: I’ve heard your students compiled lists of your sayings—of some
of your more . . .
AW: Yeah. Well, they did that, too. And that’s a different story. I began to soften in
the 1970s, when women came to law school and I—I realized they did have feel-
ings, so what were ya gonna do?
PW: [Laughs]
[00:46:05.00] AW: They cry, you know—women? Well, they did then, anyway.
Maybe not so much anymore. But anyway, so, yeah, during the 1960s, which was
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 24 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ my heyday and which I remember better than I do yesterday—I had great stu-
dents, great classes, and—and—and great fondnesses, but I know that there were
a lot of ’em that hated my guts and always will. I know that. I got a fan letter
from a guy once years later. I ran into him accidentally at a hotel in Little Rock,
and he wrote me a fan letter the next day telling me how much he hated me . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[00:46:40.04] AW: . . . when he was a student, but that he’d since softened. [Laugh-
ter] It was kind of an interesting—he became a judge. I’ve got his letter buried
away somewhere. I treasured it. So I know I had that, you know, but they don’t
talk to you. They—you know, because it’s the—it’s—it’s the way men relate to
each other. And back then—and then, of course, back then there were—there was
more respect for authority. They didn’t complain if—the—the idea was if you—
if you got a grade that disappointed you, it never occurred to you to challenge it.
It just didn’t occur to our generation to challenge it. To—today, I—I had one stu-
dent who got an A minus—wanted to know if I could raise it to an A. And I—
and it was incomprehensible to me, that—that type of mentality. Raise it? So an-
yway—well, I’m getting kind of off the—off the subject. The law school—back
to the law school. First of all, we—we—it was very different in—in—in certain
academic ways. You only needed eighty hours to graduate. You need quite a few
more than that now. But they had two programs that are since been abolished.
One was you didn’t need a degree to take the Bar examination. You needed sev-
enty-two hours. So you didn’t have to graduate. And a number of students would
get seventy-two hours, take the Bar exam, pass it, and never come back for their
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 25 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ degree. Nancy Irwin, who taught at our—our—worked at our law school up until
about a year ago and is a graduate—her father was an example of—known as Doc
Irwin down in Russellville. He passed the Bar with only seventy-two hours, but
then—then he came back and got his degree even though he was a member of the
Bar at the same time. That program was repealed. And then also they had what
they called the three/four program. Rather than having a college degree and then
entering law school for three years, you took ninety hours in undergraduate school
and then you came to law school. But you had to be in law school four years. So
it was known as the three/four program. And the difficulty was finding enough
courses in those days for four years. And the last person I knew who took it was a
man named Burl [Roughtenberry?], and I had him in mind—he was also a mem-
ber of the Legal Beagles bowling team. And I’ve lost track of Burl. And he be-
came an administrative law judge in Fort Smith the last I heard, but that’s many
years ago. And he was the last of the three/four students that I remember, and this
was in the early 1960s. So that [ ] was abolished. We also used to take in
students—this was really insane. I didn’t mind the first two programs, but the—
we used to take students in the second semester in January. But they would have
to take the second semester courses. So you would be taking contracts B, proper-
ty B, torts B—without ever having A, A, and A. That’s what I meant by there’s
an academic insanity in there. Now, why did we do that? Well, it was because
there were so few numbers. We wanted to have law students. We wanted to have
jobs, you know?
PW: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 26 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [00:50:37.17] AW: So you flunk a bunch of people out after the [laughs] first semes-
ter—now you’ve got all this space. Bring some in. And I think that was basically
the motivation for that program. I always argued we’d—’cause I had gone to
school at a place where I entered in January, but they had A—contracts A and so
on and so on, and then in the summertime they’d—they’d let you catch up with
the B’s, you know?
PW: Uh-huh.
[00:51:04.23] And I argued for that, but to no avail. And I still remember one—one of
the most prominent local lawyers—I believe if—if we were allowed to sneak a
peek into his file over at the law school, you would find that he entered school in
January, took contracts B before he took contracts A, and got a B from me. And
it’s the only B he ever got in law school, for which, believe me, I feel guilt.
[00:51:36.14] PW: Should I ask who that is?
AW: I often wonder, should I go over and change it [laughs] somehow. But that’s the
sort of thing that can happen. But anyway, a lot of prominent people. [Former
governor] Jim Guy Tucker started in that—I remember he started in January also.
A guy that’s a judge up in Bentonville—[Tom] Keith did the same thing. But an-
yway, that program’s been repealed also, especially since they stand in line to
come to law school these days and we don’t need the money [laughter] as badly
as we did. So those—those were some of the differences. Another was that the
building was so uncomfortable. It—it had been build on the cheap, as you can
imagine, so it wasn’t just that you couldn’t air—it wasn’t that the building wasn’t
air-conditioned. You couldn’t air-condition it. There was—there were some nec-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 27 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ essary elements that were missing from the building, so you could have—
would’ve had to tear the building down in large part to put in air-conditioning. So
there was a period of times when some of us bought window air-conditioners to
survive. But you—can you imagine what it was like here? And also, because
when you open the windows in the hot weather, insects to an infinite number
came pouring through the windows. I even had a bird chase me in class one day
that got kind of confused and flew in. And the students made—mocked me for
years because they—I hid under the desk is what I did. I was afraid.
PW: [Laughs]
[00:53:14.25] AW: And they never let me forget it. Be that as it may—and so in the
winter, the heat—they made up for heat what they lacked in air-conditioning, so
that when—once the heat turned on, it was like 100 [degrees Fahrenheit]. So you
had to open your windows in the winter . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . and close ’em in the summer. That’s the way the building operated. It was
not well planned. Secondly, the building—when the law school explosion started
in the mid-[19]60s, when—all of a [sudden]—my first class here, thirty-eight stu-
dents entered. Six years later, 180. It just skyrocketed. And still had that seven
professor—I taught—you know, I’d teach contracts with 180, 200 students in
the—in the class. Impossible to comprehend now. Of course, we flunked a lot
out or a lot of ’em quit, so that the second-year class might—might go from 180
to 130. But, still, then I’m teaching ’em con law, so I have 130 in that class. So
I’ve got over 300 students—me, to grade.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 28 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Wow.
AW: Think about that for a while.
PW: Wow.
Trey Marley: We need to change tapes.
[Tape Stopped]
[00:54:39.12] PW: . . . what y’all did when you hung out together.
AW: Well, I . . .
PW: Did you party with him?
AW: I have lots of things. No, Leflar was the biggest party guy on the campus.
PW: I want to hear all about Leflar.
AW: I mean, he—he—he threw parties—he—he threw a legendary homecoming party,
because . . .
PW: Hang—hang onto that because I want to hear all about that. I want to hear all
about Doc Leflar.
AW: Okay.
PW: All the stories you have about him. I’ll take you back in a minute and we’ll go
back to the [19]50s—late [19]50s when . . .
AW: I—I . . .
PW: . . . Barnhart [ ].
[00:55:02.14] AW: I could talk about what—Leflar was a genuine, great man. I’ll tell
you—I’ll give you one little story, is—when in my athletic rep[resentative] days, I
went down to Houston [Texas]. We were gonna play Rice University, and so they
invited me to—they invited me and another guy to go to the [Rice University]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 29 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ president’s house before the game, where they had a brunch and a—and the Rice
people are very snooty and wealthy and all that. And so it was really kind of nif-
ty. So I’m standing in line. I got my name tag on, and this fellow’s . . .
PW: Am I in your camera?
[00:55:39.29] AW: . . . this fellow’s next to me. He sees University of Arkansas Law
School and he says, “Oh,” he said, “I’ve been hired by the American Bar Associa-
tion to make a medallion for the outstanding professor—law professor, voted by
the Association of American Law School.” He says, “It’s one of your guys.” I
said, “No kidding?” He said, “Yeah.” He said, “They gave the first one last year
to Grant Gilmore.” Well, I knew who Grant was. He wrote Article two of the
UCC [Uniform Commercial Code].
PW: Wow. [Laughs]
[00:56:18.03] AW: Okay? And Article nine.
PW: Wow.
AW: That’s all Grant did for [ ]. And then he said, “A man named Leflar.” Num-
ber two in the history.
PW: Wow.
AW: You just find this little—he never mentioned it.
PW: That’s awesome.
AW: Just find this out standing in a buffet line . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . at the president’s house in Houston, Texas—Rice University.
TM: You have something right here in the corner of your mouth. I think it’s . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 30 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yeah, it’s spittle. It’s spittle. I get—well I do talk a lot. That’s my defense. I’m
gonna get a little drink of water here.
PW: Okay sugar.
[Tape Stopped]
AW: Everything’s cool, far as I’m concerned. But I don’t think I’m doing a very good
job.
PW: I think you’re doing an awesome job.
AW: Okay, where were we, babe?
PW: You were telling me about grading 300 tests for every . . .
AW: [Laughs] Yeah, 310. Let’s not forget that. Yeah, those were—those were chal-
lenging days. It—it does explain why some of us didn’t do much in the way of
research and publication, because today you could have a lot of time over a five-,
six-week break, you know? You grade fifteen papers. What are you gonna do for
a month? “Well, I might as well start working on an article.” Not me. Anyway,
enough of that.
[00:57:39.03] PW: Well, let me take you a back for a second. We’re in the late 1950s.
AW: Yes.
PW: And you have just come on now to—on the faculty. You’re getting close to
your—I mean, you’re fitting in with the community—the law school community.
You’ve got good co—colleagues—Spies and Meriweather and Doc Leflar is . . .
AW: Doc Leflar.
PW: . . . is, of course, incredibly influential at that time. What . . .?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 31 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yeah. Well, Doc Leflar became a national legend one semester after he went to
NYU. First—let me go back—I’m still in Milwaukee [Wisconsin]. I—I know
I’m coming down here, but I haven’t left yet. And I—I’ve always read the New
Yorker magazine, so I pick up a New Yorker. Say, three or four—couple months,
anyway, before I’m coming down here, and there’s an article in there in the “Talk
of the Town” session—section, which always is the introduction—the talk of the
town—little things going on around New York. And this reporter says, well, he
went to a cocktail party at New York University, which was—been organized by
a man named Dr. Robert A. Leflar, who’s normally of the University of Arkansas,
but who has created a—the appellate judges’ seminar, and there are judges from
all over the country taking his seminar. And I said, “Well, hell, that’s who I’m
going to teach with, you know?” So anyway—so I—I knew he was a little special
if you get into the New—a law professor in the New Yorker “Talk of the Town”
is unusual. And it’s usually Princess Di [Diana] types that make that. So when I
got here, I—there’re so many things about him that I find amusing in a—in a nice
way. He taught torts in those days. Now, it was clear—he would never say he’d
cut an arm before he’d say this, but it was clear that he considered himself the on-
ly competent person within 1,000 miles to teach torts to Arkansas students. So
there was not gonna be torts A and B, because he was only gonna be here one se-
mester, okay? So torts in those days had five hours—normally, three and two.
Not with him. Five hours. When you—when you entered law school in the late
1950s, you took five hours [laughs] of torts with Dr. Leflar because he was only
gonna be here that semester. So you took five hours of torts and three hours of
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 32 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ conflicts if you were a senior. That’s what he taught. And then he went off in the
second semester to NYU. That had several ramifications. One, NYU decided
they needed him in a particular fall semester. I don’t remember why, but they
said to him, “You have to teach here in the fall.” So he said, “Okay. This is what
I’m going to do,” and this is what he did. On Sunday he was in Fayetteville. He
flew to New York. He taught his New York courses on Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday morning. Wednesday afternoon he got on a plane and flew to
Fayetteville, where he taught his Fayetteville courses, including five hours of
torts, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sunday, back on the plane to New York.
PW: Wow.
[01:01:20.10] AW: For the whole semester he commuted between New York and
Fayetteville to teach a double load, all right? That’s Leflar for ya.
PW: Wow.
AW: Now, there’s a great picture of him getting on the airplane. He had to transfer in
St. Louis [Missouri]—getting on the airplane in St. Louis and ran nationally, and
he’s got his gray felt hat on and so on—climbing the steps to get in the plane.
Very—very unusual semester in anyone’s life would be that one. The other one
was it led to a revolution in grading, at which I’m proud to say I played a leading
role. There was a very, very nice, likeable student named Phil Dixon, and he
just—he always had a smile. He was good-natured. And Phil—Phil had one fam-
ily connection. I will be honest. We all were very proud, and that was his moth-
er. Because back in the Faubus [Little Rock] Central High School days, the rea-
son that all ended—you know, Faubus closed Central High School for a whole
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 33 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ year. It was closed. Students in Little Rock who were supposed to be going there
had to go to Searcy and Conway and wherever they could get a vacancy. That
stopped by a group—was stopped by a group of women who I just realized called
themselves STOPPED. It was some acronym. I can’t remember it. [Editor’s
Note: the a group was called STOP—Stop This Outrageous Purge, formed of the
Women’s Emergency Committee and local businessmen.] Led by Phil Dixon’s
mother. So we gave him a lot of credit for having a great mother. Secondly, he—
he was a legend for what might have been a Guinness Book of [World] Records
standard for sympathetic labor pains. When his wife went into Washington Re-
gional [Hospital] to have their baby—I believe in those days they let ’em stay a
lot longer, and she stayed five days. But he had—he had such severe sympathetic
labor pains that he stayed seven.
PW: [Laughs]
[01:03:40.29] AW: Now—well, getting all that stuff out of the way, why was he im-
portant in the law school history? He took five hours of torts from Dr. Leflar his
first semester and got a D. Now, that means he’s five hours of D. Now, to—in
those days all we had was A, B, C, D, and F. Now, in order for him to get up to a
two-point [2.0] so that he could graduate, he would have to earn five hours of B,
somewhere. Now, believe me, in those grade—in those days to get a B was very
difficult. One member of the faculty never gave a B. The top—we used to put—
we—we put the final grades on the bulletin board right outside the dean’s office.
Anonymous. You had an exam number. Say, you’re number fifteen. Well,
you’d look up and you’d see fifteen and then your grade, you know, in property,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 34 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ contracts—whatever. And that’s how you learned of your grades right away.
You would see this one professor—top grade, C plus. Now, the point in those
days, pluses and minuses meant nothing. They were meaningless. They were on-
ly used to show rank. You had a real high C. You’re a lot—your C’s a lot smart-
er than . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[01:05:10.02] AW: . . . that C minus, okay? But that’s all it meant. It was—you
might—you might say it was an ego thing. The pluses helped your ego; the mi-
nuses knocked it down a bit, okay? They had no objective meaning. So Phil
Dixon—and that’s [ ] spent the rest of his law school career after five hours
of D from Dr. Leflar getting C pluses. Never a B. Now he’s in his last semester
and it doesn’t look like he’s gonna graduate, because he’s never made up the five
hours of D—of B—D, whatever—D. And students were marching a little bit—
and kind of like, “That’s not right, you know? Phil got all these C pluses. He’s—
he’s one of the best students in his class.” [Laughter] Considering that—I know
that a future member of the Arkansas Supreme Court graduated top of his class,
okay? And his cumulative G—GPA [grade point average] in law school—
number one student—was two-nine-eight [2.98].
PW: Wow.
[01:06:25.14] AW: He did not have a B average. Think about that for difference in
grading today, right?
PW: Yes, indeed.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 35 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Former member of the Arkansas Supreme—later member and very bright—an
intellectual. A true intellectual. Couldn’t even get a B average.
PW: Wow.
AW: GPA. Okay? So poor old Phil Dixon is a—you know, C plusing it all through
law school. Now, it’s—it’s my memory that Judge Meriweather somehow man-
aged to find the required number of Bs in his heart . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[01:07:02.00] AW: . . . to get him out at the last minute. But I’ll tell ya, they were
sweating, and the students were—a lot of the students were just, by golly, upset at
the whole thing. Well, that led to brooding by some, but especially me, ’cause
it’s the sort of thing that interests me and—and then I spent the next several years
trying to gather support for a modification so that we would give—like, for a C
plus we’d give a little extra credit, and B pluses and so on. And that ultimately
led to the various grading things that—that we’ve had. So Phil Dixon did, even
though he suffered a lot of travail in his life—did finally contribute to what I con-
sider a more realistic grading system, which you live under today. That—to me
that’s kind of an epic . . .
PW: Yes, indeed.
AW: . . . poem.
PW: Yes, indeed.
AW: Anything else about Phil?
[01:07:56.11] PW: How about—how about your relationship with Doc Leflar? What
was . . .?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 36 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Oh, I—I was scared to death of him. He had—he had an—he had a double office.
He had a secretary in—in front and he was in back, so you couldn’t walk in—you
couldn’t walk into his office. You had to walk by his secretary. And—and as you
could imagine, he didn’t really want to spend a whole lot of time gossiping about
how did the Razorbacks do last Saturday, you know? He—he was a workaholic.
I—so I would go in to see him, but very rarely. I can’t remember too many times.
And—butut it was always on business. It was always I had some reason. But he
was such a great, great colleague. I can’t tell ya—I mean, to me he—he was a—
he was such an awe-inspiring figure to have around me. You know, he never
thought he was all that bright, though he was—that he—he had a lot of vanity.
But I—I always thought as a person—you know, you—everybody’s got—you
know, the Lord gave everybody a certain amount of ability. But the real test is
how much of that ability do you—have you used in your lifetime? And I always
thought of him as a 100 percent person. You got 100 percent out of him, whatev-
er he was given, whereas most people, you know, you could go way down from
that in terms of productivity. He—he wrote in such a natural—he wrote like a—
I’ll tell you the two figures that come to mind. One of ’em you won’t know, but
it’s Ernest Hemingway—simple, declarative sentences. No adjectives, no ad-
verbs—just simple sentences. And another was a guy named Orville Henry, who
was a sportswriter who did the same thing. The sentences just flowed beautifully
and clearly. He wrote about legal subjects and you could understand every word
he said. You know how rare that is.
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 37 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [01:10:09.22] AW: You have to reread and read—“What the hell is—?” Secondly, he
never threw his weight around the law school. He never said, you know, “You
better by God do it or I’m going to my buddies in the Arkansas Bar and we’ll
see.” You know, never—none of that stuff. He—he created the Arkansas Bar.
He created the standards of the Arkansas Bar. But he never used his clout to—to
get anything done or to help his situation or—it—he was a very proud man and—
I did his—Henry Woods and I did his eulogy, and to get ready for it, I read his
book called One Life in the Law. And the first eighty-six pages are autobiograph-
ical. And as I read them I got a thought which I uttered during his eulogy, and
that is he’s—he’s—he’s recapturing all the things he’s been involved in, and I
cannot begin to exaggerate what he did during his lifetime professionally. He ran
a race track in receivership. [Laughs] Things like that. He ran the race track or a
dogs track over in West Memphis or something. It was in receivership. God—I
just—[ ]. And I realized after I read the eighty-six pages, there was only one
sentence in there that I had ever accomplished, and that—and that was, he said,
“And then—and then I served as faculty athletic representative [laughs] to the
Southwest Conference.” And I—I did mention the fact—I said, “Out of those
eighty-six pages, that’s the only sentence [laughter] that I could claim, ‘I did that,
too.’” You know? That’s—that’s—that’s Doctor Leflar.
PW: Quite a man.
[01:11:59.19] AW: I’m—for whatever my ability, I have one sentence out of his
eighty-six pages. [Laughs] And I am not really exaggerating. I’m not exaggerat-
ing. He did so much. Well, the day that Warren Berger was named or nominated
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 38 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, Leflar—Leflar—I think it’s only hap-
pened twice in all the years we were—my office used to be right across the hall
from him. Twice he came into my office, and once he ran in—he couldn’t con-
tain himself. He was looking for anybody to say that Warren Berger, within an
hour of being nominated, had called him. He had just hung up talking to the . . .
PW: Wow.
[01:12:40.19] AW: . . . next chief justice, and that was because of the relationship that
Berger had with this appellate seminar at—at NYU. And—and then the second
thing Berger did—maybe the first thing Berger did after he got to be chief was he
named Leflar to be head of a commission to revise the federal rules.
PW: Hmm
[01:13:05.19] AW: And just a little thing like that—and that was something that he
just—do you know that towards the end of his life he rewrote the judicial systems
for three different states: Minnesota, New Hampshire, and I can’t remember the
third one. And he’s well into his eighties, and he rewrote their judicial systems.
PW: That’s amazing.
[01:13:31.17] AW: So what are you gonna do? So you can imagine when I—you
know, back in the early 1980s—about 1980—if I had to pick a year, I’d say 1984,
which would’ve made him eighty-three years old, ’cause he was born the same
year as my mother—1901.
PW: Wow.
[01:13:47.02] AW: And—and our—the rides I was telling you about earlier, about
driving to Little Rock with him for a semester, and I would drive and—and we
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 39 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ would talk, but he—I wanted him to do all the talking. And he gave me a lot of
history of the—of his life and—and of the university. He—we talked a lot about
the move—the effort that was periodically made to move the university or the law
school to Little Rock, and always a powerful subject. Our now—our new Gover-
nor [Mike] Beebe is the one that basically stopped all that by enacting a compro-
mise and I—I haven’t heard—I haven’t heard any talk in fifteen about that, but it
used to be a very pressing subject. And he—he gave credit to his mother for his
intellectual development. She—she was the one that pushed him. His father was
just a—kind of a—they called him a teamster, but it wasn’t—all it meant was he
owned a—a wagon and a couple of horses and would meet the trains as they
pulled into Siloam Springs and deliver—pickup and deliver goods to people in the
area that had things shipped by train. You know, that was his dad, and dad didn’t
think that schooling was very important. But his mother did, and he led such a
remarkable life. My relationship with him was one of . . .
[Cell phone vibrates on nearby table]
PW: You may have to pause it. Is it making noise?
AW: . . . great respect—great affection, that—am I doing something here?
PW: No, you’re fine. I think my . . .
Joy Endicott: The phone’s . . .
TM: Someone’s phone.
PW: I think it’s mine in the kitchen. Do you want me to go get it?
JE: It’ll quit.
AW: Oh, is there a phone?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 40 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ JE: Yeah, it’s done.
PW: Mine was vibrating.
AW: Oh, I couldn’t hear.
PW: Let me go check it, though. It’ll keep vibrating periodically . . .
JE: Uh-huh.
PW: . . . if somebody leaves me a voicemail.
SL: Should I just turn it off or let you turn it off?
PW: Yeah, you can just turn it off.
SL: In your purse?
PW: Yeah, it’s right there. It should be a little side pocket in my purse, Scott.
JE: Sorry about that.
PW: You’re welcome. No, I’m—I apologize. I should’ve thought to put it on silent
instead of vibrate.
[01:16:02.09] AW: The only time he ever [ ] was that he said he’d read something on
[ ] Law Review and he thought it was very good, and that was it. And, you
know, that’s . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . that’s like getting a medal of honor or something from him. But he . . .
PW: Tell . . .
[01:16:18.08] AW: He was—anyway, he was a giant at a time when we believed in
giants, and there were others around, you know?
PW: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 41 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: And I cannot exaggerate his importance. And he did like women. Oh, my God,
did he like women! He was kind of a legend for that.
PW: Really?
AW: Huh?
PW: Really?
[01:16:50.12] AW: Yes, yes. When you—when we had a law school dance, you
know, a spring dance or something, all the—in those days it was all law school
wives, you know? They weren’t students. And the wives got a workout on the
dance floor. He’d want to dance with all of ’em and . . .
[01:17:11.01] PW: I’ve heard he liked to party, too. Is that true?
AW: Yes. He—he and his wife had frequent parties—law school parties. They had a
legendary homecoming party when all the lawyers—of course, all of ’em had
been his student. You know, he taught every class at the law school from 1927
for the next sixty-three years.
PW: Wow.
[01:17:34.16] AW: I mean, I remember once—first day of class—you know, first day
you’re just so excited. “This is the year that it’s gonna be the greatest year in the
history of the world,” you know? First day you’re in there, and I walk into the
men’s room on the third floor and he’s in there, and he’s washing his hands and
I’m waiting behind him and I’m gonna wash mine. And he says—and he—and as
he’s drying his hands off, he says, “What are you so happy about?” I said, “Oh,
Doc,” I said, “I just realized I’m starting my thirtieth year here.” And there was
silence, and he said, “I’m starting my sixtieth.” [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 42 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Wow.
[01:18:14.21] AW: And I said, “Oh, okay.” [Laughter] You know, what a put-down.
“Ugh! I’m starting my sixtieth.” And I remember my first year here there was a
student named Carroll Ray, and in the middle of—you know, back then—
anonymous grading, and so—but we all knew that Mrs. Ray was pregnant and
due any second, and as it turned out, in the middle of the constitutional law exam,
some student came in and motioned to Carroll to come out, and he went out. We
all suspected the truth. Five minutes later, he’s back in. He finishes the exam.
I’m grading the papers later on. Open the page. It says, “It’s a boy!” [Laughter]
So I knew whose—I knew Carroll’s paper. The anonymous system had broken
down in that case. Well, then, years later I’m teaching the boy, who had—“It’s a
boy!” time, you know? So he’s—his son comes to school. And I said something
to Dr. [Leflar]—“I’m teaching a—” he says, “I’m teaching their grandchildren,”
you know?
PW: [Laughs]
[01:19:19.22] AW: Things like that. And—but all of which—which is true. Do you—
do you understand? The Arkansas Bar when I came here was a different create—
creation. One of my first friends—I gotta think of his name before I end this.
Marv Holman. Marvin Holman. Now, Marvin Holman was not what I would call
an intellectual giant, okay? He was from Clarksville. And he and I became
friends when he—remember, I’m still single. I’m still running around with the
older law students. Marvin was older. He wasn’t all that much younger than me.
And he—he—he goes down to Clarksville. He invites me down to visit him one
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 43 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ time, so I go down there. He’s very proud, showing me around and all that. He
gets to talking and he says, “There’s seven lawyers in Clarksville. Two of ’em
have been to college.” Marvin and a guy named Wiley, who had just been elected
chancellor [laughs] in that area. The other five came out of match book law
schools. Well, I—you don’t know what I mean, but match books used to have,
like, Chicago something, you know? An “800” [phone] number or a version or—
and you call up there and you get a law degree. They had five—the other five had
never even been to college.
PW: Oh, my gosh.
[01:20:48.15] AW: That was the Arkansas Bar in 1960. Seven lawyers. Two had col-
lege degrees. And one of whom barely got it. [Laughter] He used—he used to
tell me—he said—he—he liked to associate real lawyers when he had a case—
bring somebody in from Fort Smith or something.
PW: Wow.
AW: But he knew all the jurors [laughter] in the county, so—so Marvin sat right there.
Jury selection time. Never mind.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: I’m really kinda wandering, aren’t I? See, you better . . .
PW: No, you’re . . .
AW: . . . keep me on track.
[01:21:27.26] PW: You’re doing beautifully. You—you mentioned you had—that
you and Dr. Leflar used to take trips to Little Rock.
AW: Yeah.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 44 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: What was—? What—why were you taking the trips to Little Rock?
AW: Well, the Little Rock Law School or the Little Rock University, I should—I
should—University of Arkansas at Little Rock—in general had a hiring freeze.
So I know that they couldn’t hire any—they didn’t have a—they were unable to
hire anybody, so they didn’t have a person to teach conflicts, so they asked Dr.
Leflar to come down to do that. And they—they didn’t have a person to teach
contracts during the daytime. So then I did—so I went—we did a really kind of—
we didn’t get—get paid anything extra. We just did it as kind of like a favor, and
what—and they were very accommodating. He and I would get together, like,
mid-morning Thursday and drive down and get there one or two-ish [1:00 or
2:00-ish] and have enough time to get ready or relax and teach an hour-and-a-half
course late Thursday afternoon. I think mine ran from, like, 4:00 to 5:30—
something like that, and so did his. His was right alongside me. Then the next
morning we would teach, like, 9:30 to 11:00. So we taught the three-hour course
in that segment like that and then we could leave, have lunch on the way back
home, and—and go home. So, you know, we—we were only on the road one
night and we really weren’t even away from home forty-eight hours, you know?
More like thirty—thirty-six hours, so . . .
PW: I bet you had . . .
[01:23:12.26] AW: So I taught contracts B and he taught—or I taught contracts A
and—maybe I did it the second semester, too, but he didn’t. But it was the fall,
and he taught conflicts.
PW: I bet you . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 45 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [01:23:26.27] AW: And I remember one time getting on an elevator and there was an
older woman—you know, she was in her thirties or forties, but obviously a stu-
dent, and just the two of us. So I said, “What are you—are you in law school?”
“Yes.” I said, “What are you taking?” And she’d mentioned she was in Dr.
Leflar’s—I said, “What do you think of Dr. Leflar?” You know, by then he’s
well into his eighties. And she said, “Oh, I think it’s a privilege,” so, you know,
that was nice.
PW: I bet you had some great conversations on the trips there.
[01:23:52.19] AW: Oh, God, the—the conversations. I mean, first of all, you want to
talk about the—well, I tell you—he graduates from this university. He wants to
go to law school—has no money. So he worked for two years. One year he
taught at John Brown University. And you want to hear—you think I was over-
loaded. I was part-time my first year here compared to him. He had at least six
different jobs. He did everything. Then he went and at age twenty-one he was—
he was either the principal or the superintendent of schools at age twenty-one in
Stuttgart, Arkansas. And so he worked these two years—saved enough money to
pay the tuition at Harvard [University]. Now, how he got to Harvard I forget, but
I like to think he maybe took a train, because how he got home from Harvard to
Fayetteville is he hitchhiked, and it took him a week, okay? And he—he told me
that he was picked up by a family—parents and a couple of kids in a four-door
car, and they pulled over—at night they pulled over to the side of the road and
sleep on the ground, okay?
PW: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 46 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [01:25:08.03] AW: That was life in—a hundred years ago, travel-wise. So then he—
then he told me about Harvard, how the professors—there were certain professors
he did not like at all. One of ’em was Felix Frankfurter, later a member of the
Ark—of the United States Supreme Court. He thought Frankfurter was the kind
of professor that just like to have acolytes, you know, around him that would
kneel and kiss his ring and so on. He was also a—he was also a classmate of
Henry J. Friendly [Editor’s Note: Henry Jacob Friendly sat on the United States
Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1959 through 1974, including ser-
vice as Chief Judge from 1971 to 1973]—I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
[01:25:47.27] AW: . . . Henry, but did not make the United—was the most brilliant
judge in the country—did not make the US Supreme Court ’cause he would’ve
been either the second or third Jewish member, and they—they thought that was
several too many. Cardozo [Editor’s Note: Benjamin Nathan Cardozo was a well-
known American lawyer and jurist, remembered for his significant influence on
the development of American common law in the 20th century. Cardozo served
on the Supreme Court of the United States from 1932 until his death in 1938, but
the majority of his landmark decisions were delivered during his eighteen-year
tenure on the New York Court of Appeals] was on, I remember, and Brandeis
[Editor’s Note: Louis Dembitz Brandeis was an American litigator, Supreme
Court Justice, advocate of privacy, and developer of the Brandeis Brief in Miller
v. Oregon, 208 U.S. 412 (1908)—a landmark decision in United States Supreme
Court history, relating to both sex discrimination and labor laws. The case upheld
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 47 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Oregon state restrictions on the working hours of women as justified by the spe-
cial state interest in protecting women’s health. Justice Brandeis was appointed
by President Woodrow Wilson to the Supreme Court of the United States in 1916
and served until 1939], I think. No, Cardozo—well, I think that was—those were
the two that disqualified the third.
PW: Hmm.
[01:26:18.18] AW: Anyway, he said in his class, “Henry Friendly was here. The rest
of us were here.” That was the way he described it. So even he had heroes.
PW: Wow.
[01:26:29.25] AW: So he talked about his school days. He talked about the university.
Do you know he wrote with several others the fiftieth-year anniversary of the
University of Arkansas, and later he wrote by himself the hundred-year anniver-
sary?
PW: Wow.
[01:26:47.11] AW: Now, I—to me, things like that just are so startling and—and so
easy to grasp—you know, his relationship to this university. He co-writes the fif-
tieth year [laughs] and solely writes the hundredth- year history of this university.
Little—other little-known facts about him is he told me—they didn’t have a jour-
nalism department, but if they had, that’s what his major would’ve been. He liked
journalism. And he worked his way through school here by being what they call a
stringer in sports. He would write—he would follow the Razorbacks for all sorts
of small-town newspapers around Arkansas, and they each gave him a couple dol-
lars a week, I guess, during—and he claimed that he had invented the Southwest
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 48 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Conference Track and Field Championship because it gave him extra money
[laughter] to—to be a stringer for—anyway, little things like that. That’s how he
worked his way through school was writing about sports for newspapers around
the state, and he told me about the efforts to move the university in 1916—a very
serious effort to move the university to—to Little Rock, which obviously failed.
And his personal hero—and he talked about him in terms of great respect and
awe—was Julian Waterman, the first dean. He genuinely loved Julian Waterman,
and that’s—that’s pretty much the only person he ever gave an opinion of from
the days—from the early days of the law school, through the 1930s. I—you
know, I don’t know what else. We talked about history mostly—his history and
the old history of the—of the university. And then, of course, we talked—that
famous conversation where he said that I had to tell him when he was too old to
teach anymore.
[01:29:01.28] PW: Tell me about that.
AW: Well, he had to—he had this bronchitis problem. He had terrible . . .
TM: Need a break there—spittle. Got it.
AW: He—he had terrible bronchitis, and he used to—on our trips he used to take a ci-
gar box and he’d spit up his phlegm in that cigar box. Yeah. But it would come
out in sizeable quantities. So I don’t know why I brought that up except that it
fascinated me, I guess. But one time he got to talking about himself, and I knew
from prior experience that he was extraordinarily strong for a man of his size.
And he—all of a sudden he got—he—which he never did, you know? He—he
got kind of emotional, and he—and I’m driving the car, and he—he reached over,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 49 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ I guess, with his left hand and he—he seized me on—on—on my right leg, right
around in here, and he started to squeeze. And, I mean, he was squeezing hard.
And he started—he said that he—he knew himself well enough to know that he
would never voluntarily quit teaching. He had—would have to be told. And then
he said to me, “You’ll have to tell me.” [Laughs] And I—I’ve never recovered
entirely from the thought of me conceivably going in his office and telling him—
you know, we used to call him Bobby Jack behind his—behind his back. That
was—Bobby Jack, the thunderbolt of the Ozarks. [Laughter] It’s—that was what
we called him back in his—the early days I was here, and that’s [ ], yeah, I’m
going in to say, “Bobby Jack, you’re through.” [Laughter] You know, and—and,
of course, now I—I—I’m—I’m looking around for somebody to tell me because
you do realize that—that when you’re honest with yourself, you—you’re—you’re
too proud to ever say, “I’m—I can’t do it anymore.” So you’ll never voluntarily
quit—never. He didn’t, and he was—the last several years were kind of embar-
rassing because he got 100 percent deaf.
PW: Wow.
[01:31:31.06] AW: And students would take advantage of it. They’d talk and read
newspapers and so on, and he didn’t know because he couldn’t hear them. And
so his last several years were not happy ones teaching. And they’d moved him
out of Conflicts and courses like that—kinda like what—seems to me there’s a
parallel in the [ ] seminar. [Laughter] Yeah, he was—there was a seminar
about the—the judiciary. Yes, believe me.
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 50 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Oh. There is a connection. But in any event, that’s maybe the only connection I
have with him. Great man. Great man.
[01:32:11.15] SL: Sense of humor? Did he have much of a sense of humor?
AW: That—I—I—not—not—not what I would call an easy sense of humor. I—he—
he was easy to talk to. What I—what I—what I admired about him more than an-
ything—how—it was how he never tried to impress you with his—with his status.
He never tried to—“I am Robert A. Leflar.” Now, when he walked in a room of
the Arkansas Bar meeting—you know, when there were a bunch of lawyers in
that room and he walked in, it would be like a group of actors and Johnny Depp
and Julia Roberts and they’re, you know, coming—awe-struck. They were—they
were little kids again when he walked in, and I know he enjoyed it. I could tell
he—he knew that he was a legend and he enjoyed the knowledge. But he didn’t
make a fuss about it. That’s what I liked. My memory of him on that score is he
was—he was chairman of the last Constitutional Convention we’ve had in Arkan-
sas, which was 1979 and 1980, and it was filled with women delegates. And he
would be up there with the gavel, you know, organizer—and during any kind of
break, all these women were up surrounding him, and the look on his face was
such joy, you know? And they—he knew that they worshiped him, ’cause he was
so much smarter than the whole group combined, you know? And you could tell
he loved the adulation, but he never fussed—made a fuss about it. So anyway,
I—I’m sure other stories will come along. Well, I’ll tell—I’ve mentioned one.
You know, when he—he was forced to retire, and there was an effort made to
keep him away, which was a bitter thing and upset everybody. But they finally let
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 51 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ him teach after he turned seventy, and he—and he said he would not—he would
not need to be paid. That was essential. So the [University of Arkansas] Board of
Trustees—and he taught twenty-one years for nothing.
PW: Wow.
[01:34:39.24] AW: So you can imagine, we got, by the market value of the time, we
got way over a million dollars in unpaid professorial services. You know, at one
time he was—there was a reliable story—he was—when he was at NYU, he was
the highest-paid professor in the—law professor in the country.
PW: Wow.
[01:35:02.04] AW: He died a millionaire, you know? I mean, he had to get it some-
where.
PW: [Laughs] That’s awesome.
AW: Oh, I remember a neighbor of his who was a former law student and a friend of
mine tell me one time that Dr. Leflar wanted to buy a house for his younger son
and—and daughter-in-law and their three children, and he went over to him—his
house was next door and it was a beautiful home, and he paid him cash—wrote
him a check. You know, he was very impressed with that. No mortgage. So my
point is none of that—you only knew about it if you learned it by accident, you
know what I mean? It just—it wasn’t something that was published or that was a
matter of common gossip. I learned about it at a poker game when he was telling
me, “Hey, you know what Doc Leflar just did? He wrote me a check—” [Laugh-
ter] That kind of conversation. “Wrote me a check for my house.” That sort of .
. .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 52 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: That’s amazing.
AW: . . . gossip.
[01:36:08.24] TM: You talked about you knew he was strong from previous experi-
ence. Was that any kind of story?
AW: Oh, yeah. He—he had a terrible back. What he did—when his back went out he
would—he would roll out of bed and he’d get on the floor and he’d roll around on
the floor to get his back back in—in action. Two things caused it: one, he said
when—when he was at one of these Japanese internment camps and it was around
Thanksgiving, and they decided what they needed to do was go out and cut fire-
wood for the winter. So—I guess they probably lived at some sort of barracks. I
don’t—I’m—seem—makes—makes a lot of sense. So the Japanese males were
sent out with their axes to chop down trees for firewood. Well, they were doing
such a good job that the white guys, i.e., Leflar and his buddies, said, “They’re
showing us up.” So they went out there and they tried to cut a—they tried to keep
up. They became competitive—wood-chopping. The Japs versus the USA.
[Laughter] And—and he hurt his back [laughs] doing that. Then later on, if you
ever walked up to his house, he had a stone walkway, and the stones were all,
like, you know—he carried ’em all up from the Pig Trail. [Reference to Arkansas
State Highway 23] He stole ’em from the Pig Trail and throw ’em in the back of
the car and carry ’em home and lift ’em and plant ‘em, and he hurt his back.
Never mind. But that’s—I mean, strong. I’d love to tell you—I tell you, it’d take
three or four of us to lift some of those stones. And that’s the kind of guy he was.
But you know that—well, I—I could—obviously, I’ve taken all this time.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 53 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: That’s great.
[01:38:01.10] AW: I mean, I’m just fascinated by the way life was back—when he
was a boy, you know where all the action was? It—where does the Pig Trail
start? There’s a town out there. Come on, somebody . . .
TM: Ozark?
SL: St. Paul?
AW: Huh?
TM: Ozark?
SL: St. Paul? St. Paul?
AW: Around St. Paul, that’s where the action was. He used to walk to—that’s—and—
in that area or sometimes, you know, he’d hitch a ride on a horse and buggy. But
you’re—we’re talking, now, 1910, 1920. You didn’t have roads like we’re used
to. Anyways, that’s the part of Arkansas that fascinates me—the older—the—my
mother’s age and that generation and what life was like here then. It’s so—and
the changes.
[01:38:56.18] TM: Talking about where the action was—what do you mean by that?
AW: Where the girls were.
TM: Okay.
AW: Picnics. They used to do a lot of, you know, Sunday—Sunday picnics and things.
I use the word action. I’m not sure how to get specific, but I imagine they had the
same desires that seem to be eternal.
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 54 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Or whatever that means. Young boys and girls—I never got—I never let my
mind go too far down there.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: But I’ll bet he was hell on wheels.
PW: It sounds like from his later years . . .
AW: Huh?
PW: Sounds like from his later years . . .
AW: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.
PW: . . . he probably was in his younger years.
AW: What can we—else can we talk about?
[01:39:49.20] PW: You mentioned—you mentioned that Dr. Leflar was instrumental
in getting Dean Barnhart [ ].
AW: Oh, yes. He—he persuaded all of us to vote or—that led to some bitterness on the
part of Ray Trammell, was the senior member and who felt that he should’ve been
given a hearing—which I—you know, I sympathize with him because today, of
course, you—you know, you interview people and you—and—and certainly if
somebody expresses an interest and says, “I’d like to be considered,” decency re-
quires—but Leflar really ram-rodded it through. A guy like me, who knew noth-
ing—you gotta remember, I was only in my second semester. I didn’t know how
deans were—I didn’t know anything. I didn’t even know what tenure was. Hon-
estly, I didn’t. I just thought you—you know, you—if you—if you did a good job
they’re hire ya next year. I was—in other words, I was naive and—and somewhat
innocent about all that stuff. Leflar really did—so he—I just did what—what he
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 55 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ wanted me to do. Why not? I had no other reason not to. And I’m sure Spies felt
the same way, although Fred was much more informed and—and understood all
this better than I did, partly because he’d been to graduate school before he came
here and—and much more interested in the ins and outs of legal education. He
had always wanted to be a member. I—to me, it was an accident. I wanted to be
a practicing lawyer. And so I—I didn’t have any knowledge of the academic
world. So I just did what I was told and so did he. But Trammell—I’m—I’d say
at a very minimum, had a justifiable complaint in that he was not even considered,
even if he was turned down, and was a—and was very bitter about it, and I think
it soured him on his relationship with both Barnhart and Leflar, though I’m only
guessing. Because it wasn’t too many years later that he moved over to the ad-
ministration building as the full-time general counsel for the university. And I
kinda lost track of him. I understand he’s still living around here, but I haven’t
seen him in memory. I haven’t talked to him or seen him in—I can’t tell you
whether it’s fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years, though I understand he’s still
around.
[01:42:10.19] PW: So Barnhart becomes dean. He replaces Joe Covington. What was
. . .?
AW: Yes.
PW: What—how did that change the atmosphere in the law school. Did it . . .?
AW: Well, Barnhart became—it was sort of mysterious—I—I—I’m not entirely sure.
I—I—I love amateur psychoanalysis, since you can, you know, you have—you
can say anything you want and always defend yourself on the grounds, “Well, I’m
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 56 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ not a psychiatrist.” But he started out he was very popular with a lot of our—
he—he—the students—the students were kinda split on him, but the good stu-
dents liked him because he—it was the true Socratic method. He never answered
a question, “What do you think? What do you think?” You know, it was al-
ways—and guys like Jim Blair, for example, just thought—thought the world of
him. A guy named Jim [Youngdall?], who was a very top student when I came
here—he was their favorite professor. Other students who—you know—he never
answers a question, you know, and they’d say—so there was a—there was a split
about—within the body about what they thought of him. But as I say, he had very
strong supporters, usually among your better academic students. He was—he was
very civic-minded. He served on the [Fayetteville] City Council and was consid-
ered one of the best members. He served on a lot of important committees at the
university and was considered one of the more progressive types. He had worked
for labor unions after law school and before he went to work for the government
during the war. And he did a lot of arbitrations. He was—he taught—I think he
taught labor law. I know he taught civil procedure and evidence also. And so I’d
say he was favor—favorably received by everybody around that I knew, except
later on the Trammell relationship—but for some reason, it all—it all occurred, so
far as I can tell—two things happened that soured his career here. One was with-
out really—without really telling anybody how he felt, he became a—kind of a
secretive supporter of the Little Rock law school. Now, there’s nothing wrong
with—with the position he took. In fact, I might even have gone further than he
did in my own views. But the point is he never told anybody. He became very
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 57 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ secretive, so that you—he didn’t communicate with the faculty, and consequently
that—things would get crosswise, you know, because we weren’t sure what was
going on and, you know, that academics tend to be paranoid and et cetera, et
cetera. And some of it had to do with the Little Rock law school, especially—and
he turned against Dr. Leflar because Dr. Leflar was a strong—and you can imag-
ine, I mean, with his stature in the profession—the Arkansas Bar was a strong
proponent of the one law school. And then his—his position was very simple.
He said, “Arkansas is a poor state. We could only afford one law—good law
school, and it should be this one.” And that was basically his position, and you
can see the strength of that argument. Whereas, the people down in central Ar-
kansas—they wanted their own and they had a different philosophy. And Barn-
hart aligned with them, but without telling us that he had, which came as a sur-
prise to me. And it came out mostly because he started turning against Leflar, and
he ran Leflar off for a couple years after he retired, before—the other was over
employing a man who had been assistant US attorney in Little Rock through the
Central High crisis and all the litigation over Central High School and related
matters and school cases—Jim Gallman. And Gallman had decided he didn’t
want to be the US—deputy US attorney anymore, and so he came up here to be
partners with E. J. Ball, who—far and away the most prominent Fayetteville law-
yer in my long time here, and they became partners. But Gallman—but Barnhart
also hired Gallman as a full-time member of the faculty, and that’s against the
rules, you know? You’re—you’re one or the other. But we all know practicing
attorneys are part-timers, or they call them adjuncts, and come over and teach a
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 58 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ course. Half the lawyers in Fayetteville have done that at one time or another—
certainly—certainly the ones that were good students. Sid—Sid Davis and Chip
Wright, Tom Berk, John Eldridge. I’m sure there are others—have all come by
and taught over the years regularly. But Gallman was carried on as a full-time
professor. So there was a lot of faculty unhappiness over that arrangement. And
it’s not clear to me why Barnhart didn’t see that—that that’s—was clearly a viola-
tion of rules—that all you have to do is read the—the association’s handbook on
full-time faculty and—and you could see it. So there was—those two incidents
really soured things from about 1968 or so ‘til Barnhart was—until he resigned.
And I think he resigned maybe a year or two before he wanted to, but because of
the faculty unhappiness with his treatment of Leflar and the—the Gallman inci-
dent. But it led to a—a very, very bitter, divisive period in—in the history of the
law school, and one that affected me a lot, both personally and professionally—
which I—I don’t know what else to say beyond that I—it—it had an enormous,
incalculable impact on my own [ ]. It was part of the reason why when I had an
opportunity at the same time to get more and more involved with working with
the Athletic Department that I—I eagerly participated in that to get away from
what I considered the unhappiness of that bitter period in the Law School history.
So Barnhart’s later career was—was marred by a great fissure with the faculty.
When he resigned—when he—when he retired, in all the years until he died,
which may be as much as thirty, I only saw him in the law school once. It’s kinda
hard to think that a guy who had spent his whole professional life at a place would
not come back, at least to check his mail or walk through the building. But that
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 59 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ was how bitter it was. He—he never came back, except—it was some affair cele-
brating a gift to the library that he came back. That was the only time I ever saw
him again. And we were very close, he and I—but not over these incidents.
We—we had a rupture in our relationship. But that’s—that’s—you know, that’s
very sad as you look back. Gallman was—I liked Gallman, but it was just simp-
ly—it was not a—it was not a tolerable, acceptable position to have two masters,
so to speak. I mean, there you are in the phone book on the letterhead or wherev-
er—Ball and Gallman, attorneys at law. And then U of A faculty, Dean Ralph
Barnhart; Assistant Dean James Gallman. [Laughs] You know, it’s just—there
you were.
[01:51:00.17] PW: What happened to Gallman after Barnhart . . .?
AW: Well, Gallman resigned. He sued us for defamation. He sued me. I said some
unkind things. The word “incompetent” was used. I don’t want to get into that
too far, but—but I liked him personally. He liked me. But we just had this—we
just had this rupture. I do remember my boys were about nine or ten and the po-
lice served me with a summons and a complaint asking for $2 million for my def-
amation, and my older boy saying, “Well, Daddy, do we have that much money?”
[Laughter] That was the—that was the highlight of that incident. “No, we don’t.”
But he and I made up afterwards. He told me one time if I wanted to be dean he’d
support me. [Laughter] So the—the personal part—I mean, you know, it’s how
lawyers are. I mean, they—you know, they—they get into “I’m gonna kill you.”
“No, I’m gonna kill you first.” And then afterwards it’s “Let’s have a drink,” you
know?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 60 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: [Laughs]
[01:52:17.00] AW: We used to see it at the Elks Club. There’d be a big trial in town
and the lawyers for each part would come out after the—after the trial, and the
winners are here. “Bring us some more [laughter]—bring us some more booze.”
And the losers are sitting at the other table, you know, it’s just . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[01:52:33.10] AW: But they’re all drinking together. Never mind. It’s the nature of
lawyers and—I think—and maybe men lawyers. I don’t know how women feel
when they’ve won and when they’ve lost. But men—I—I—they tend to get over
it. But—and E. J. Ball was involved in it, and he—he was very much against us,
too, but he and I later became very close friends. And he—he helped me out in
several ways, including financially, so that—it was kind of a no hard feelings
time. At the same time, we—we—we both suffered from going through that
trauma.
[01:53:22.14] PW: About how long did that last? How long was that period?
AW: Well, in terms of chronology, it—it went from I would say 1969 to 1973—four
years. But in terms of the impact on the people involved in it, it—it really—well,
like in Barnhart’s case, he never came back. I mean, so, you know, I—I don’t—
he and I in terms of our personal relationship would never made it up.
[01:53:59.10] PW: And you mentioned that Dean Leflar left for a couple of years or
was run off.
AW: Yes, he—he . . .
PW: Dr. Leflar. I’m sorry.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 61 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: The point is—the point is the university wasn’t ready for—for anybody to teach
past seventy. And the idea of doing it was so shocking that they didn’t—Leflar—
that—Leflar tried to arrange to get it accepted. So what he proposed was that he
teach for nothing, and—in other words, he had no rights or—technically, he
wouldn’t even be a member of the faculty. He’d just be Leflar. And obviously it
would be something designed only for him or someone of his stature, and if peo-
ple said, “Well, what are we gonna we do if somebody else—” “Ask ’em if they
want to teach for nothing,” you know, that would be the—plus, ask them if
they’re famous, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, you—you know ninety-nine point
ninety-nine percent of the people are not gonna go to work if they don’t get at
least a dollar now and then. And he took zero. So I always thought that was a
very significant fact in his argument. And Barnhart had said that he was gonna
support him in—in having that petition. And when the time came, he refused to,
and it turned out they said, “Well, we can’t—we can’t act on this unless your dean
recommends it.” So he was—he never—his petition never got to the board be-
cause Barnhart wouldn’t recommend that he be kept on, and that lasted two years.
During those two years—listen, he taught at Vanderbilt [University] one year.
They’re—they’re accredited, I think.
PW: [Laughs]
[01:56:04.09] AW: And—and the—and the second year he taught at [University of]
Oklahoma—Bob Wright gave him a job. Now, he’s being well paid at both plac-
es. He’s probably the highest-paid guy on each faculty, but he’s not good enough
here to teach for nothing. You see the—do you see a little irony in there? So an-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 62 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ yway—so then—by then Barnhart had resigned and that issue took care of itself.
See what I mean? That was the saga. We—we wrote a song for—about his exile,
and I wish I could sing it because it had to do with, “Who are you, fella, sweeping
around the Coke machine?” And all that. “What’s your name?” “I’m Dr.
Leflar.” [Laughter] And it was sung—it was an old song. “I’ve Been to Spain,”
and we changed it to “I’ve Been to Oklahoma.” [Laughter] “And now I’m back.”
Anyway, the students made a big fuss about his return. He was worshiped by stu-
dents. We wrote a skit about him one time, and it was the year he came back.
And we had a series of songs in his honor. And I heard one last night on the—I
haven’t heard it in thirty years. Did you ever hear of a song called “The Tennes-
see Stud”?
SL: Yeah.
AW: Huh?
SL: Yeah.
[01:57:42.14] AW: “The Tennessee [Stud].” It’s a great song. And we changed the
lyrics and it’s—Tennessee stud’s a horse . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: But it’s “eyes of green” and we had him—his—his—his eyes—“he’s a teaching
machine.” [Laughter] “Ain’t nobody like the Arkansas Stud.” [Laughter] And
we—and we did that one and we did—oh, God, “Yesterday When I Was Young.”
We did that one. We did “When I was—” “When I Was Twenty-One.”
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 63 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: “It was a very good year. And when I was thirty-one it was a very good year. It
was a very good year for teaching law to small-town boys. Those were private
joys. My work was never done when I was thirty-one.” Isn’t that a great lyric?
PW: [Laughs] That’s awesome.
AW: “When I was forty-five my classes came alive.” Huh? How’s that, huh? You
follow what I’m saying?
PW: [Laughs] That’s awesome.
[01:58:32.17] AW: We had that—we did—but the final song was onward—I predicted
this. I said, “The students are gonna go crazy.” This is his first year back after
two years of exile. “Onward, Robert Leflar.” And that’s all we have to—
“Onward, Robert Leflar—teach on endlessly. Teach our great-grandchildren, just
as you taught me.” And the cast just kept repeating it—those same lines. And the
students got up, and there were 800 people at this party, and they started singing
it. And it was calling it—the skating rink.
SL: Yeah.
[01:59:18.00] AW: It was out on . . .
PW: Oh, yeah.
AW: . . . [Highway] 62 towards Farmington. And the crowd went crazy and they
wouldn’t stop. And finally Leflar comes up to the microphone . . .
TM: We need to stop here and change tapes.
SL: Oh, my gosh!
TM: Sorry. I’m sorry.
[Tape Stopped]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 64 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [01:59:37.09] AW: And it’s a great—and it’s a great insight into Leflar, what I’m gon-
na finish with in a minute—was when Bill Cosby first came along as a young
comic. You remember when he did that Moses skit? He did . . .
PW: Yeah.
AW: He did a skit. He’s Moses out in the back yard . . .
PW: Yeah.
AW: . . . minding his own business, and this voice says . . .
SL: Oh, yeah.
AW: . . . “Moses, this is the Lord speaking.” [Laughter] And the Lord says, “You’re
gonna build this ark.” [Laughter] And—and—and poor old Moses is—“What?
Two of what?” You know, he’s—and he goes—this is a great routine. Well, we
did that for Leflar.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: I was—I was the voice of the Lord. [Laughter]
[02:00:23.02] SL: Okay, so now wait a minute. Let’s talk about the rink again.
TM: So he’s coming to the mic.
AW: He’s—okay. So the crowd obviously will not quit until he—“Speech!” That’s
what they started yelling. “Speech! Speech!” And so finally he gets up and he
walks over to the microphone and he leans into it, and everybody is deathly quiet,
and he says, “On with the dance.” And that’s all he said. And the perfect—in
other words, “Get this stuff over with. We’re gonna get dancing.” [Laughter]
And so anyway, that was a great moment. I just—I treasure that moment. But we
had other—we—we—we just—we loved the—the students loved to hear us.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 65 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Well, we never—see, they didn’t want us to make fun of him. They wanted us to
make fun—bitter fun—of everybody on the faculty. And that was one year. The
first real skit I wrote with an idea in mind in the beginning was—it was a—it was
on “let’s pretend a dean search.” And it was a way to hit everybody in the facul-
ty, because it started out with getting Barnhart fired.
PW and SL: [Laughter]
[02:01:51.11] AW: And then replacing him. And everybody on the faculty was con-
sidered and rejected for some major flaw, okay? And then at the—and—and at
the end, then, I’m in—I’m behind, like, hiding—you can’t see me, and I have this
giant megaphone, and I still got it. The students gave it to me and they all auto-
graphed it, and I’m the one that said—whoever I was talking to—Ford—that
was—“This is—this is the Lord.” “Are you talking about Ford?” “No, this is the
Lord.” And then based—and then what I say is, “There’s only one man in Arkan-
sas who can save the Law School, and we’ve gotta bring back Dr. Leflar and
make him dean.” But that was the whole—that’s why I got into all that other
stuff. But that’s the way the—we’d never made fun of him, see? So everybody
on the faculty got jammed for being in more—usually morally [laughter]—too
morally corrupt to be the dean. And—but except Dr. Leflar. He would save the
Law School. So that’s how they felt about him in his prime. They worshiped
him.
[02:03:08.00] PW: Well, what was the—what was the student body like in those days?
I mean, what was the demographic of the student body?
AW: Well, you—you have to remember . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 66 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Was it changing?
AW: . . . we were very slow to get women. We had a flare for—we—we—we’d insti-
tuted some programs to encourage black kids to come in, but—but it—it always
was a puzzle because none of ‘em—I shouldn’t say none of ‘em—the only ones
who ever did well and graduated happened to be people who were not brought in
specially. They just had applied and got in because they had—you know, they
were treated like everybody else. They didn’t have any special enrollment proce-
dures for them. And I’m thinking of guys like Richard Mays and Les Hol-
lingsworth, who became my closest buddy in that—of that group. Les and I trav-
eled around together quite a bit when he was a student. But, see, like, he’d been a
chemist for Dow Chemical for six years before he came to law school. You
know, it was—they were different generation-type guys. But the ones that came
in early—not like today’s youngsters that are over there—didn’t—very few of
’em ever graduated. Most of ’em flunked out. And so the—the number of—of
black students was very small. And then women were slow. I think as late as
maybe 1968,1969, 1970—in that era—I—I think there was a large class—
probably 150 to 200 students, there were only three women. It was—it was—
even that far along in—into things. I may be wrong on that, but that’s my
memory. And then—and then we seemed to top off at about thirty-three percent
for many, many years. And now—now, of course, it’s equal or—or—it doesn’t
make any difference anyway on any of those scores. So to—to that extent it was
very different. So the attitude of the Law School was very few women, very few
minorities. I remember they made a big fuss because this woman who was an In-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 67 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ dian princess—a Native American princess—she was a captain in the infantry, al-
so—came to law school and made a big fuss about that ’cause we—we know we
have a large percentage of people living here who are of Native American de-
scent, but they don’t go around identifying themself as such, and so you’re not
aware of it. But we were aware of her. And—and, in fact, she’s an appellate
judge now, I think. So as far as the attitude was—golly, I just—I just like all the
students that I can think of that I remember from [ ] so much, and I remember so
many of ’em were so bright. Now, I know I’m wrong in that you always had a
sludge group, you know. But they flunked ’em out then—back then.
PW: [Laughs]
[02:06:13.24] AW: See, they—they didn’t stay around too long. And so many of ’em
that I just thought the world of and still do. And I enjoyed them. I mean, I—now,
I was not nice to ’em in class. Outside of class I always thought I was kind of
nice, but not in class. I was—I was just kinda demanding. Things—the things
that infuriated me were lack of preparation and lack of interest.
PW: Uh-huh.
[02:06:44.14] AW: And they would—it would trigger me. And I—and I am emotion-
ally immature to a high degree, and it would set me off. It would just set me off.
I’d—and sometimes I’d really get angry. And—and . .
PW: Do you have any particular stories?
AW: Huh?
[02:06:58.06] PW: Any particular stories come to mind?
AW: Well, I think . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 68 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Students [ ].
AW: I think, to me—because I was very emotional—there’s a guy named John Har-
mon, who I’m happy to say I think later got disbarred. He became city attorney.
Do you remember him? He was . . .
SL: I—I kinda remember that name.
AW: . . . city attorney in North Little Rock.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Yeah, he—he had—he had—he had the smart-alecky—see, you can look in their
faces and you—you say, “That smart-alecky SOB [son of a bitch]. I don’t like
him.” So he got smart in class one day, and he didn’t do any work and all that,
and I’d lost my temper, and I said, “Mr. Harmon, do you know that man on your
left?” And he said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Is he a friend of yours?” He said, “Yes,
sir.” I said, “You know that man on your right?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Is
he a friend of yours?” He said, “Yes, sir.” I said, “Well, I’m glad you got two
friends, ’cause I want you to know one thing. I am not your friend.” [Laughter] I
thought it was—it was kind of—I mean, I worked it out as I went along. It—it
sounds like I’d planned it, but it was extemporaneous. It just—so, I mean, I
would get like that. And I would tell people, like, “That’s the most stupid ques-
tion in the history of the Southwest Conference. Would you like to go for an
Olympic record for stupid questions?” [Laughter] And, you know, I mean, just
awful stuff. And I had a student once that said he was unprepared, and then later
on I looked up and he’s staring at the ceiling right up there. And I stopped the
class and I said, “Sir,” I said, “it’s bad enough you don’t read the material be-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 69 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ fore.” He said, “Why don’t you read—” I said, “Why don’t you read it now in-
stead of staring at the ceiling?” I embarrassed the hell out of him.
PW: [Laughs]
[02:08:34.00] AW: Do you follow me? I did that every day. I was terrible—at people
who . . .
TM: Corner of your mouth. Corner . . .
AW: God, I get that—I talk a lot.
TM: [Laughs]
AW: But you—you see what I mean? I mean, you—they aggravated me because of
their attitude towards—this stuff is important. This—I mean, “I’m devoting my
life—everything I am—to this stuff and you’re treating it like that? You’re gonna
hear about it.”
PW: [Laughs]
[02:09:01.27] AW: I mean, I didn’t—you know, that’s all. That’s my only excuse.
Now, a lot of it also was I—I—a lot of the real anger came from the fact that I
wasn’t a very good teacher. This—this—you only get little glimpses of yourself
as you go through life—you know, as you really are. And what I realized was
that I was frustrated with me, that I’d take it out on them. But it frustrated me
’cause I wasn’t doing a better job of explaining or getting ’em interested. I mean,
you gotta get—you know, you have—when I was a law student I walked into the
dean’s secretary’s little office space to hand her something, and I heard the dean
in there, and he’s talking to this professor. And the professor was bad-mouthing
his class from the past semester. He had just turned in their grades. He said,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 70 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ “They were the worst—” this and that. “They’re so dumb.” And he was going on
and on. And the dean, who was a very soft-spoken man, said, “Well, I’ve often
found that with a student—if a class doesn’t do very well, it’s the professor’s
fault.” Well, this guy just kinda [laughs] shrunk down to midget size and left.
And I often—but I thought, “You know, that’s probably true,” and it certainly
lived with me. See, I’d get mad at myself, too, but they didn’t know it. They
thought I was mad at them—and they were right. [Laughter] But, no, I just
was—I wanted—I just wanted ’em so badly to—to care, to work, to think. And . .
.
[02:10:36.15] PW: How about that—during that period—did you have any students
that just stand out in your mind that you taught, that just . . .?
AW: Oh, yeah. Well, let me—let me—Sid Davis, local legendary lawyer. He was—he
was very early in my career here. I’m a little—I mean, Sid Davis was brilliant. I
often thought—and his partner about ten years later, Tilden Wright III, a.k.a. [also
known as] Chip Wright, and they later became law partners, and he made—if—if
there’s such thing as saying, “Who’s the brightest you ever had?” I’d vote
Chip—of whom one of my colleagues, who rarely said anything interesting, did
say once that we, the faculty, should be grateful to Chip Wright because he never
tried to embarrass us in class. [Laughter]
PW: Wow.
[02:11:36.16] AW: And he was that kind. He had a powerful brain. And he became
law—the thing is they both became law professors—law associates—partners—in
Fayetteville. And they were also both mathematics majors, which, to me, is the
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 71 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ very antipathy of what I would always would think—not antipathy, but opposite
of—of what I would think is preparation for law school.
PW: Yes.
[02:12:01.25] AW: Numbers? Who needs numbers? Anyway, those stand out. And
Martin Gilbert, who later became big-dog lawyer for Wal-Mart and has now re-
tired to Fayetteville—he stands out. He was—he was sharp. Oh, God, there were
so many, though. Later on, Tom Mars [Editor’s Note: Thomas A. Mars: Wal-
Mart’s General Counsel since May 2002. In 1986, Mr. Mars became an associate
of the Rose Law Firm, working for Senator Hillary Clinton. He served as Arkan-
sas State Police Director 1998-2001 and also serves as Chairman for the Ameri-
can Bar Association Minority Counsel Program Steering Committee. He attended
law school at the University of Arkansas, where he finished first in his class and
served as Editor-in-Chief of the Arkansas Law Review. Early in his career he
served as a law clerk to Judge Monroe McKay, U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Tenth Circuit.], who—I don’t know what Tom’s doing now. He left Wal-Mart.
He—he may be with Wal-Mart now. He—he was chief—he was—he was—he
had a lot of jobs. He’s a brilliant guy. Former [Arkansas] State Trooper. That’s
what all—his background—background fascinated me. He was a—he was a cop
and he came to law school and he was a genius. Things like that. Who else? A
guy named George Gleason—they—he’s advertising himself now. He went
through Hendrix [College] in about a day and a half.
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 72 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [02:13:07.09] AW: Really. He—he—he—he set records down there. I’m—I’m sure
they still talk about him. And he came to law school and he was the same way.
And—and now he’s—he’s the head of some big bank in Arkansas and they’ve
been advertising all over the local paper. I don’t know why. George Gleason.
Check him out. Brilliant guy. But he was so brilliant, he went through—he was
too fast to catch up to you. You’d say, “Oh, yeah, there he is.” Then, “There he
goes.” [Laughter] Who else? Oh, golly. Well, Susan Webber. Susan Webber
Wright, as she’s known. She was really good. Oh, I’ll tell ya—Steve Nichols.
You know . . .
PW: Yes.
SL: Yeah.
[02:13:52.21] AW: The commercial law guy. Steve Nichols is—oh, my God, is he
smart.
SL: He’s at Wake Forest.
AW: Huh?
SL: He’s at Wake Forest, isn’t he?
AW: Yeah.
SL: He also sits on the IRS [Internal Revenue Service] Board.
AW: Oh, does he?
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: He—Steve was my student, and I’m very fond of him. He was—he was excep-
tional. And what I liked is he was at the University of Minnesota—he left here
for Minnesota, and I went—I was up at Minneapolis at a meeting and I looked
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 73 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ him up and spent the day with him, and—and he was telling me—he said, “I tell
these people up here,” he said, “I got a much better education at Arkansas [laugh-
ter] than we’re giving to our students here.” And I knew he was telling the truth.
But I just got a big kick out of that. He said, “I got a much better education.”
He—in fact, he—he—he—you know how they do in the—[ ] this book is in
memory of or in honor of or whatever—they have a little page there, and he
named about half a dozen of us that were on the faculty. Anyway, so he memori-
alized us in that way. He was—I—I don’t know what else to say except we have
always had top students—could go—now, let me—let me give you an example.
My best friend at Baylor University is a man named David Guinn, and he—he
was the faculty representative—athletic representative there, and he—so that—
we—we became friends, and that’s what—and he’s the one who arranged for me
to teach down there all the time. And he was an expert in the Voting Rights Act
of 1965 or something, and it’s the act that provides that you cannot discriminate
when you change boundaries of cities or school districts and things like that. You
have to—you can’t have an adverse impact on certain protected groups, like racial
minorities and so on. And so I got a—I got a phone—and I didn’t know anybody
in Arkansas that did that kind of work, because I got a call from a very good law-
yer in Camden, Arkansas, who was smart enough to do it on his own if he’d ever
worked on it, ’cause he’s a brilliant guy. His name’s Alan Roberts, and he said
did I know anybody that could do this kind of voting rights act. Well, David
Guinn was an expert—leading expert in Texas. And I didn’t know anybody on
our faculty, so I said—I gave him—I gave him David’s name, and he hired David
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 74 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ and it worked out perfectly. David got some other jobs, he did so—he did so
well. So one time I’m talking to David a year or two later, and he said, “Oh,” he
said, “I’m—” he said, “I’ve met all these students that were former—you know,
lawyers that were former students of yours,” and—and they got these stories
about what you were—[ ]. And then he said, “But the—” he said, “I want to
tell you something.” He said, “They are awfully good lawyers.” He said, “Eve-
rybody I have run into in Arkansas,” he said, “is a really good lawyer.” Now, he
didn’t have to tell me that. He’s the kind of guy that would not tell me that if he
could. [Laughter] You know? And—but he was highly impressed with the qual-
ity of the Bar that he met in south Arkansas, you know? So I—I—I appreciated
that, because David’s a real sharp guy. Anyway, so we have always had good
lawyers. Alan Roberts I just mentioned—he’s brilliant. Brilliant guy. A little
nutty, but lovable.
PW: [Laughs]
[02:17:38.29] AW: Joey Mahoney, another one from El Dorado. He wasn’t a good
student, but he was as smart as anybody we ever had. He just didn’t have—he
didn’t work. I gave him an F. I took pleasure in giving him an F. I never took
pleasure in doing that, but I did in his case ’cause he cut class all the time. You’re
letting me ramble now.
[02:18:00.13] PW: No, you’re doing beautifully. Still in the Barnhart years—what’s
going on in the faculty? Are you guys adding new people?
AW: Well, we added a lot and they left a lot—they left [ ]. There was a big in and
out thing. There was—my favorite was a guy named Sam [Fetters?], who was
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 75 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ a—kind of a breath of fresh air type guy—very likeable, very—he—he could
frustrate you very easily with some of his ideas. He left us for—he was here
about three, four, five years and left for Syracuse [University], where he stayed—
I think he—I know he retired there and I think he might’ve died. A guy named
George Joseph, who was the last of that unlucky generation that still caught polio
before Dr. [Jonas] Salk was invented and—and he had a—he had been a victim of
polio and he—his one leg was all out of whack and he had a shoe that was about
this thick, you know, and he—and limped around. And he left us after a couple
years and went to become—I think he became a prosecuting attorney in Portland,
Oregon, which was his native soil. We had a guy named Ed [Greenenbaum?],
who—from Indiana, who suffered from the fact he—he stuttered, and the students
were not at all of a mind to adjust to the stuttering. They used to complain all the
time, and he still—and he just never—I don’t know, you know? I guess if—if
you can’t cure it or control it, then there you are—handicapped. And he suffered
from that. He was well educated at Harvard Law School and all that. But he left
after a couple—you know, I ran into him back in the 1990s over in England. I
was at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies for a semester and—and he was
still plugging away at Indiana University, but he still stuttered. I don’t know how,
but they kept him on. And a guy named Ray [Parness?] had some brilliant ideas
about church and state and religion, but he got mad. There was things that he
didn’t like here. I can’t remember the details. And he ended up at the University
of California at Davis. Then there was another guy named—oh, it’s just on the tip
of my tongue. I—it’ll come back to me. But his wife was very wealthy, and she
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 76 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ ran for governor of—or senator or something for—in New Jersey after he moved
back there. Steve something. Oh, what’s his name? Anyway, he liked this area
so much that he used to come back and go fishing with Tom Keith, who’s now a
judge in—in Bentonville. Steve [Maltin?] [O’Hara?]—something like that. And
his wife didn’t—didn’t fit in here. And then there was a guy, and I can’t remem-
ber his name, but there’s a great story. Two stories about—well, I’ll give ’em
both and you tell me what you’re like. Excuse me.
PW: That’s fine. That’s fine.
[02:21:28.17] AW: This man was—he and his wife were not only Jewish, but they
were of the Kosher variety, which I think is the real strict, hard-shell Jews, if
that’s appropriate. And they kept what’s called a Kosher table, which means you
even have to have special knives and kitchen [implements] to deal with your Ko-
sher food, and so on and so on. And when they arrived at the airport, the students
greeted them, and they found out they had brought a nanny with them and some-
body that knew Kosher cooking—they had a lot of money—to join the faculty as
an assistant professor out of Philadelphia. [Laughs] But they had—he and an en-
tourage, including . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[02:22:17.20] AW: . . . all these implements for cooking Kosher. And—and that—the
students really—you know, you can imagine around here. That—that was exotic .
. .
PW: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 77 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: . . . to [laughs]—God, I wish [I knew his name?], because he was real brilliant and
a nice fellow. But the far—the best of ’em all was—happened, I must admit, be-
fore I got here. But it—it must be remembered, and that is, there was a professor
from Rutgers [University] who was hired to teach in the summer. And a bunch of
students were sitting around the lounge, and they hear Professor Meriweather—
Judge Meriweather—talking to the dean. “Is so-and-so coming from Rutgers this
afternoon?” And the dean said, “Yes.” He said, “He’s supposed to arrive at the
airport about 3:00.” “Okay.” That’s all they said. Now, these guys are sitting
there in the lounge listening to all this. And one of ’em was very wealthy, and he
owned an old-fashioned car that was—that you used to see in old movies—kind
of a jalopy looking, but it was four-door convertible, okay? Like, made in about
1925. He owned that—he had a lot of money. He owned a lot of old squirrel ri-
fles and things. So the next thing you know is when the plane lands at 3:00, there
in this old car from the 1920s are about six law students—barefooted, overalls,
straw hats, squirrel rifles [laughter], and this was the conversation when the—
when the poor son of a gun got off the plane. And they’re there—the delegation.
And they’re opening—I wish I could do Southern. I’ve lived here all these years
and I can’t do Southern. I can’t do any accents. Where’s my son? He can do it.
But their opening remark to him is, “We er the faculty at the law school.”
[Laughter] And that in itself is—is a winner. But their next sentence is to me—
what makes it classic—they then said, “Whut er yer opinion on the Missouri
Compromise?” [Laughter] Oh, God! They were—now, that—that’s gotta be one
of the great moments in the history of visiting professors around the world. “We
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 78 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ er the faculty.” [Laughter] Barefooted, Big Smith overalls, straw hats and squir-
rel rifles.
[02:25:12.01] PW: How’d he respond?
AW: In a—in an old four-door—you know, something that came out of The Beverly
Hillbillies. Oh.
PW: [Laughs] That’s awesome.
AW: Enough of that. But it—that’s—that’s one of the great moments. Students
were—students in my day—they were hardworking. They know they’d flunk out,
but they partied hard. Now, back in those days, you know, a lot of ’em drank—
actually drank whiskey instead of this other Miller Lite [beer] . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[02:25:46.14] AW: . . . and so on. They—they were athletic. They had touch football
teams. They played golf—tennis. I played golf and tennis myself back in those
days. I wasn’t old—too old to do that. And we had—as I said, we had the best
bowling team in Fayetteville. We did. We’d beat anybody. Beat anybody. And,
in fact, we did. So it was an innocent time. We played a lot of poker. I—I—I
guess this is okay to tell. I once played poker with seven other law students, and I
was dealt a hand that was not any good, so I threw it away. And then while
they’re playing the hand out I’m sitting there looking, and all of a sudden as I
looked around the table, I realized that I had given a D or an F to everybody in the
game. [Laughter] And they put up with me, do you understand? I’d given a D or
an F to everybody . . .
PW: Wow.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 79 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [02:26:51.16] AW: . . . that was playing in the game. One of the guys still owes me
$65.
PW: From poker?
AW: Yeah, that’s—I guess the statute of limitations has run, but—it’s more than forty
years ago anyway, but he still owes me $65. Yes, we played poker a lot, and it
was a simpler time.
[02:27:14.26] PW: Now, is it true that it was during that time that you were working
on getting the LSAT [Law School Admission Test] and some of the things [
] for the students?
AW: Oh, yes. Now, that—that’s very interesting. When I came here you could get in
with, I think, a two point [2.0]. It may be that ninety group—that ninety hours,
three/four group might’ve had to have a two-five [2.5] or something, but it was
minimal, minimal to get in. And nobody cared because we didn’t have a—even
then, we didn’t have—you have to understand that at that time the legal profes-
sion was not a money-making operation. Not at all. And guys had a harder time
getting jobs then than they do now—or anytime in between. There just wasn’t
any demand for lawyers at that time, and it all happened overnight—kind of like
without your knowledge, you know, that the world changed around you. Then—
then as the numbers started in the early 1960s, and we started getting these big
numbers. “Wait, do we still want to have this?” So we said, “Well, let’s have the
LSAT. And, well, but do we want to require that they achieve a certain number?”
And for several years the answer was, “No. We’ll make ’em take the LSAT, but
we won’t use it as a standard for admission. We’ll use—” And you say, “Well,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 80 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ why are they taking it, then?” And the argument was, “Well, suppose some of
’em do badly, flunk out, and petition for readmission. We could consider that
when we’re considering their petition for readmission. What was their score?”
So we had—I—I know one student came in that was in the one percentile. One!
I mean, that’s no standard at all, is it?
PW: Uh-huh. [Laughs]
[02:29:08.08] AW: I mean, there was only ninety-nine percent ahead of him.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: And I think he passed.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: But be that as it may—and then later on we required it, and then they developed
the formula that you’re now used to, where a certain number you are automatic
and then the rest of it is kind of—you have to depend on some other criteria for
admission—special admissions.
[02:29:39.16] PW: Were you instrumental in getting it as a requirement?
AW: I didn’t do much about the LSAT. I wasn’t even sure what it was, ’cause we
didn’t have it when I was a student. I was—I was—I was instrumental in what I
call the special admissions, which are—were basically for minorities and other
people who were kind of—well, we—I thought of ’em as over-achievers—
deserved a break. And a lot of ’em worked out very well. So we had three tiers.
We had a automatic, we had a—kind of a minority admission, and then we had
a—a special admission group. And, of course, that could be abused, but I was on
that committee for several years at least, and don’t recall a—I don’t recall any
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 81 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ abuses of it. Maybe there were. But I always thought—you know, I’ll—I’ll give
you a guy that we didn’t let in, but, you know, people change. You—Scott’s
heard of him, but one of the greatest football players in the history of the Razor-
backs is a guy named Loyd Philips. All-American [1965 and 1966], super-duper,
number four pick in the NFL [National Football League] draft by the Chicago
Bears [1967-1969], et cetera, et cetera. [Note: Phillips was actually pick number
ten in round one of the 1967 NFL draft—not number four.] Okay. So while he’s
a football player, he cares nothing about academics, okay? Zero. And his cumu-
lative grade point is, like, a one point size [1.6], okay—after three years of school.
Now he goes into the pros [professionals]—he has a short career ’cause he gets a
severe injury—can’t play anymore. Now he comes back here to get his under-
graduate degree. In, like, a year and a half he earns, like, a three-nine [3.9] . . .
PW: Wow.
[02:37:04.29] AW: . . . or a four point [4.0]. I mean, he’s a new man. He’s a different
person, okay? Now he wants to get in law school. We didn’t have the special
admission program then. But it’s obvious that we’re dealing with two different
people. You’re dealing with someone that never cared and now you’re [dealing]
with somebody that’s taking it seriously. But we didn’t let him in because his
cumulative GPA was below the required amount.
PW: Uh-huh.
[02:31:53.00] AW: That’s the sort of thing I would’ve thought of as—should be con-
sidered at least for admission, even though they didn’t qualify under the numbers.
You see what I mean?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 82 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Uh-huh.
[02:32:04.13] AW: So he never went—and now he’s a farmer and junior high school
principal in Benton County somewhere—Bentonville, I think, or Rogers.[Editor’s
Note: Phillips is now the assistant principal at Elmwood Junior High School in
Rogers, Arkansas.] And his brother—younger brother—Terry Don graduated
from our law school. So that sort of thing is is what—what I had in mind for the
special admits. Somebody who did something special that deserves at least con-
sideration. Not automatic. You review. You talk to the person—that sort of
thing.
[02:32:38.01] PW: Any particular story you remember of someone who was admitted
under that standard that . . .?
AW: Yeah, a—a man who later became a bankruptcy judge, and a very good one ac-
cording to [all reputations?]. Was—he was either that or he was the lowest admit-
tee of the year or something. He—I mean, he—he was—he was outstanding for
his lack of academic credentials [laughter] and had a—had an excellent career and
did a good job. See, it’s funny how those things work.
PW: Yes, sir.
[02:33:10.07] AW: I never believed much in the top or the bottom element. I always
thought that they were not as good predictors as—the ones that were in the middle
are pretty good predictors. But the guys at the top—sometimes they goof off and
they’re conceited and lazy and they don’t—and they’re disappointing. And some-
times those guys at the bottom—they know they’re at the bottom and they, by
God, know they better put out 200 percent—and they do, some of ‘em. And so I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 83 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ always—I—I was never too impressed with the standing in that. I was impressed
with top grades, obviously, but that comes after the fact, you know?
[02:33:53.24] PW: Yes, sir. So after—after—you’re at the end of the early 1970s.
Barnhart . . .
AW: Yeah.
PW: . . . has resigned.
AW: Yeah.
PW: And Leflar is back from his exile.
AW: Yes, he is.
PW: So who—then what happens?
AW: Well, in—in—in—in 1969 I’d gotten a letter from the president of the university,
a man named David Mullins, who as I look back—when I was here during the
1960s, the faculty all kind of—what do I wanna say?—badmouthed the—you
have to remember, the 1960s were a different decade from anything you’ve ever
experienced. It was wild and crazy.
SL: [Laughs]
[02:34:37.14] AW: And a lot of the faculty, wanting to be wild and crazy as they seek
the comforts of tenure, were critical of Mullins because he wouldn’t take a stand.
He wouldn’t come out and say the—the Vietnam War sucked or whatever or stu-
dents should be allowed to smoke marijuana in the student union or something.
But he was very staid and conservative and so on. But he kept the university sta-
ble. And I got to liking him, eventually. I mean, I probably went along with con-
ventional wisdom when I didn’t know him, but when I got to know him I really
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 84 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ liked him. So I get this little memo. “I’m pleased to announce that you have just
been appointed chairman of the Faculty Athletic Committee. Please arrange for a
meeting [with] me at your earliest convenience so that we can discuss this as-
signment.” That’s how I found out about I’m gonna be the—I’m gonna be the
faculty rep[resentative]. And I had no idea what they did. I didn’t even know
they existed—maybe in a vague way, but I hadn’t known any. Well, it turns out
that Leflar was one in his youth. But—and I mentioned that earlier. So I go over
and see President Mullins, and he said—he was very cordial, and he said, “Well,”
he said, “I just want to say two things.” He said, “Don’t let ’em spend too much
money and try to keep ’em honest.” [Laughs] So that was my assignment, okay?
The reason the first part—the money—was at that time the—this faculty commit-
tee was supposed to be in charge of the Athletic Department’s budget. Well, there
was no way you could control those people, you know? I soon realized that was
an impossible mission. But keeping ’em honest, I mean, as best you could—yeah.
So I became the faculty athletic rep. I had had some experience before that as the
assistant rep—gone to meetings and some of that, when a man named John
[King? Kane?]he—was the boss and a business school professor. But I didn’t
know [Frank] Broyles very well. See, he wasn’t the athletic director. He became
the athletic director the same day I got the faculty rep. A man named George
Cole, after whom Cole [baseball] Field is named, and a wonderful, wonderful
man. And he had been the athletic director after the legendary John Barnhill.
And, actually, Cole had run the department for years, ’cause Barnhill had suffered
for some very—from some terribly serious medical problem. I think he was para-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 85 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ lyzed or had a stroke or something and was rarely seen. I don’t know if he came
to the office or not very often, but he was obviously a man of—that—for whom
there was great respect, and—but George was a—the perfect guy to have on your
staff doing all the work, you know? And a wonderful—as I say, a wonderful guy.
So anyway—so Broyles and I kind of started off together, him as AD [athletic di-
rector] and me as faculty rep. And I guess the—to me, the most important mo-
ment was the first time we went to a meeting of the Southwest Conference. They
always had a meeting in the first week in December in Dallas, Texas. That was in
the constitution. It was a requirement. So we both—we didn’t know each other
worth a darn. I—we’d maybe spoken five sentences to each other in fifteen years,
and we both got to the clerk’s desk to sign in to register at the hotel, and I signed
in and he signed in. And then he looked at me. He said, “Al, would you take my
luggage upstairs?” And I said, “No,” because I knew that if I had ever said yes, I
was gonna be carrying his damn luggage for the rest of my life. So that marked
our relationship. [Laughter] I was not gonna carry—see, I realized right away
that I didn’t work for him. My check came through the law school and not—not
through him, so—unlike the people who did work for him and were scared to
death and would’ve carried his luggage anywhere he asked them to. So anyway,
we started off together and we worked together for many, many years, and actual-
ly just—I just quit working for him last January one.
PW: Wow.
[02:39:40.05] AW: ’Cause I was on retainer until then.
PW: And all this time you’re still on faculty at the law school.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 86 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yep. Yeah, and that—now, the—the point is I brought some of it on myself and I
brought some of it—I let some of it be brought on me by him so that I got very
much consumed by Athletic Department matters, far beyond your typical faculty
rep. In those days the faculty rep had to meet with the committee. You chaired
the committee. So you say, “What does the committee care about?” The commit-
tee [cares about] free tickets and—and going—going to a bowl game and parking.
The big issues. Are you with me? Okay. That’s what the faculty committee is
concerned about. I—I—I swiftly grew disinterested in faculty concerns. The—so
that—those was—those were on-campus meetings. Then you had two meetings a
year; one in December and one in May of the Southwest Conference, and they
lasted, like, two days. Well, that’s not big [ ]—two days every six months.
And then in January you had about a five-day meeting of the NCAA [National
Collegiate Athletic Association], and that was for the year. Nine days out of
town—monthly committee meetings—couple hours, where you talked about free
tickets, free parking at the games, and “Are we gonna go to a bowl game this
year?” That was pretty much that, except no—once one of the members said that
we should—we should write a letter to the athletic director recommending we
have home—more home cross-country [track] meets. Do you know what cross-
country meets are like, huh?
PW: A little bit.
[02:41:51.20] AW: Suppose you’re at the Fayetteville Country Club and you’re—
you’re—you’re hit—you’re trying to hit your shot to the green and all of a sudden
you see some scantily clad guys sifting through the trees, and they’re running.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 87 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [Laughter] And “Who the hell are they?” “Well, that’s the cross-country meet.”
[Laughter] “But we should have more of them because the—of the crowd ap-
peal,” I think was what his argument was. And you know who the—I mean, do
you ever heard of anybody going to a cross-country meet in the history of the
world? No. But he’d want us to encourage the—never mind. It—believe me, the
committee was not on the top of major issues. So back to the—so what happened
that got me so involved? Well, in those days the NCAA was not all that involved
with investigations of alleged rule violations—the conferences did it. Years later,
the conferences decided to petition the NCAA to take over that, partly because it
was expensive and partly because it led to feuds within the conference. If—if—
if—if we’re investigating SMU [Southern Methodist University] for rule viola-
tions and find them guilty, they’re gonna be mad at everybody else. And the next
year when they’re investigating you, SMU’s gonna lead the charge and—you
know?
PW: Uh-huh.
[02:43:33.07] AW: And so there’d be intra-family feuds is kind of it. So let’s get—it’s
unhealthy, but we did that for many years. Now, you gotta understand that all—
in those days, all rule violations were felonies. They did not have the concept of a
misdemeanor or a trivial offense, so that you would end up—I don’t care how tri-
vial—you would end up spending extraordinary amounts of times on the silliest
issues. And then when it was a serious issue, like you actually bought a player
with money or something similar to that, then, I mean, it was really big time. And
this was before they had the money to hire lawyers or outside people to do all this
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 88 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ work. So I—this is an instance where I let myself be sucked into it because I
found it so challenging and [interesting], you know? It’s what lawyers do. They
investigate, they defend, or they attack or whatever—prosecute, and—and I en-
joyed all that, but then I realized, “I’m spending incredible amounts of time on—
on issues.” I was really—I really had become what now they call the compliance
director. Now, how—how did it work before I got so involved in it? Well, we
had an assistant athletic director named Lon Farrell—great, great guy. And Lon
was a great man, and I’m—and I miss him. But this was his attitude. He
would—he’d find out that we violated a rule. He would call whoever was in-
volved—the NCAA or the conference—and he’d say, “We have violated this rule,
so we’re turning ourselves in. But don’t—but we’re real nice people up here in
Arkansas. We’re real decent. We mean well. We don’t try to cheat, so don’t—so
don’t do anything to us.” That was his approach [laughs] to—to defending your-
self. Well, mine was more adversarial. You know, like, “What do you mean, we
violated a rule? Who the hell are you to—we—” I mean—and, you know, chal-
lenge everything. That was my—so I—that’s how I let myself get sucked into do-
ing his work. You follow me?
PW: [Laughs] Uh-huh.
[02:45:49.19] AW: And, you know, but I’ll tell you the incident was when—do you
remember—you’re—but you’re so young—“The Triplets”—famous basketball
players here—“The Triplets.” [Reference to Sidney Moncrief, Marvin Delph and
Ron Brewer] Somebody out at the [Northwest Arkansas] Mall decided to put out
playing cards with their pictures on the cards, okay?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 89 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Uh-huh.
[02:51:44.21] AW: Well, that—the rule is there, you’re commercializing your athletes.
So we’re supposed to turn ourselves in and—and—and—and get punished. I was
all for turning ourselves in, but I said, “We didn’t—” you know, I started doing
lawyer stuff. “We didn’t ask them to do this. We had no control over ‘em. We
had no control over ‘em. We—we called them and asked them to cease and de-
sist. We did everything we could to get ’em to stop selling these things. What do
you want us to do?” And they said, “Okay, that’s enough. No violation.” You
see? That—that—that was—that was—that’s a silly little incident, but it shows
that—I—I got into it a lot like a lawyer would, you know? And—and Lon would
do it as an old high school football coach would do it at a Catholic boys’ high
school.
PW: [Laughs]
[02:47:03.05] AW: “We are so nice. Don’t do anything to us. We went to confes-
sion.” [Laughter] That’s the way. “We—we went to confession. We’ve con-
fessed our sins. Now, give us forgiveness.” Okay, that’s—that’s about it in a
nutshell—the difference. Well, as life went on, it became more and more rule vi-
olations—more and more rules, more and more violations—some of ‘em, big
deal, believe me. And all of a sudden I realized I was spending as much or more
time on athletics stuff, and as I’ve told many people, if universities were efficient-
ly run, I would’ve been fifty percent law school and fifty percent Athletic De-
partment. But I didn’t think of it and nobody else thought of it, so you just, you
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 90 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ know, took that macho attitude, “Well, I can do it all,” and—and probably ended
up not doing any of it very well, but there you are.
PW: So . . .
[02:48:03.29] AW: Anyway, that’s—that’s how I got so deeply involved. Then, I love
committees. I’m—I’m one of the few people—I like committees, and I’ve been
on more committees than anybody I know. I was once on fourteen committees on
this campus.
PW: Wow.
AW: Seven law school and seven university. And I—and they tried to put me on a fif-
teenth committee, the insurance committee, and I refused to serve, like that Civil
War general—[William Tecumseh] Sherman, I guess it was, that—but they took a
survey once at the NCAA, and I was on more committees than anybody in the
country.
PW: Wow.
[02:48:40.12] AW: I was a committee person and I liked that. So I got more and more
committees—in the conference, in the NCAA, and I got heavily involved in the
bureaucracy of athletics. So—and the commissioner liked me on a personal basis.
We just got along—we had a very good—and so he pushed me for a lot of stuff—
positions of responsibility, so I did a lot of that. So anyway, so I had a long career
as, you know, working with the Athletic Department. And people say, “Oh, you
must love sports.” That—that has nothing to do with it. You’re a lawyer and
that’s the way I looked at it. I’m doing things that lawyers are trained to do.
They’re trained to negotiate. They’re trained to write rules. They’re tried to—
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 91 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ trained to interpret rules. They’re tried to—they’re trained to investigate allega-
tions and—and—and draw conclusions and advocate a position and, you know,
things like that. So that’s what I—that’s the part of it I enjoyed, whether they had
a game going on at the same time—what? Who cares. Had nothing to do with it.
Zero. And, of course, Howard Brill—you know, many, many law schools look to
their law schools for this position, and that’s the reason, I’m convinced. [Univer-
sity of] Tennessee did. We did. Howard Brill replaced me. And my assistant for
years was a guy named Milt Copeland, ‘til Howard came along. And anyway, at
Baylor [University] it was that way. Texas Tech [University] was that way.
PW: So . . .
AW: Well, enough of that.
[02:50:32.04] PW: . . . you’re doing all this with the Athletic Department. Are you
simultaneously still teaching at the law school?
AW: Oh, yeah, I was teaching con law and contracts, and it—finally, I realized I was
doing too much. I should give up one, if only for the benefit of the students if not
my own. And meanwhile I knew from conversations with Mark [Hillenbeck?]
how much he wanted to teach con law, so I went to him and I went to the dean,
and I said, “Look, what about this?” And everybody was agreeable, and so Mark
inherited con law and has done, I think, a remarkable job. He certainly—I’ve
read all of his articles and they—I just think they’re magnificent works of re-
search and scholarship. And he’s—he’s become a true expert in that area—a true
nationally recognized expert. So that was a good move on that score. So I just
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 92 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ taught contracts for a while, and then after I retired I stayed on in athletics for a
while, but I cut down on teaching.
[02:51:35.19] PW: Now, after—after Barnhart retired or resigned . . .
AW: Yeah.
PW: . . . then who replaced him at the Law School?
AW: Wiley Davis. Wiley was from Georgia. He was a graduate of Mercer Law
School. He had gone to Harvard for graduation—I mean, for graduate school, I
should’ve said. He got a master’s of law from—from Harvard. And while he was
there, I—Dean Covington was finishing up his SJD [Scientiae Juridicae Doctor
(Latin); Doctor of Juridical Science] at Harvard, and so he met Wiley and, well,
we had a vacancy, and so he brought Wiley back with him. And he joined our
faculty in the 1940s. Wiley was here when—when all of the famous incidents
happened occurred about integrating the law school. He was the one who led the
midnight search-and-destroy [mission] into that classroom where they had had set
up a separate little walled-off place for the black student to sit.
PW: Tell me about that.
AW: Did you know this?
PW: No, tell me about that.
[02:52:36.06] AW: Oh, yeah, I—I’d be delighted. What happened was that when—
when they admitted a—Dr. Leflar was dean, and he wanted to integrate, but he al-
so was a realist and he recognized that that would not be 100 percent popular,
okay? So they debated how to do this. And what—they did two things that I
know they’re—if they ever think back, would be ashamed. And that was, one,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 93 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ they didn’t want the black student [Silas Hunt] to be physically harassed, okay?
So they—they put a little railing around him in the classroom or rooms—
whatever they had at the time. This was before Waterman Hall, you understand.
And so he sat there. The other thing they did was they hired a professor for him.
I’m—I’m not sure of the details here, but it’s a great guy who’s—and who is he—
he’s been so generous to the university and I’m so senile I can’t remember his
name under pressure, but . . . [Editor’s Note: later in the interview AW remem-
bers the professor’s name, which is Bill Enfield.]
SL: Judge up in Bentonville.
AW: One of the old-timers.
SL: Yeah. Bill—I’ll think of it.
AW: Yeah, I—help me out on that. Anyway, he’s still—I think he’s still alive.
SL: He—he was—he had actually just graduated, hadn’t he? I mean, he . . .
AW: Yeah.
SL: He—he was . . .
AW: Yeah. Yeah, he was . . .
SL: . . . a student . . .
AW: . . . brand new. Brand new. Exactly.
SL: Yeah. Uh-huh.
AW: And—and so he was hired to teach him or help him or something. I can’t re-
member the details. I wasn’t here. But anyway, the—the railing offended a lot of
the students and it offended Wiley. And so one night they snuck into the law
school and just tore the whole damn railing down, which is how—and nobody
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 94 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ said anything. They didn’t say, “Let’s go look for the vandals” or any search, you
know? It was a—it was a relief, I’m confident, to Leflar and everybody else to
get rid of what would have been a mistake. But, you know, it’s easy to second-
guess people who’ve had to decide whether to pass and punt from the end zone
with—with thirty seconds to make up their mind.
[02:54:45.13] SL: This was before Brown versus Board of Education.
AW: Oh, yeah—ten years before. Or no—eight years before. So anyway, Wiley was
on the faculty here during the late 1940s and—and early 1950s. Now, he—he
made something of a reputation because he and Dr. Leflar co-authored a very far-
seeing Law Review article that was published in the Harvard Law Review, and it
wasn’t about Brown versus Board—it was an anticipation that Brown versus
Board would—would—would come out the way it did come out—to wit, the
court would—would invalidate segregated schools—racially segregated schools.
But the—the thesis of the article was a well-written and well-received and re-
markably accurate prediction—how would Southern schools—states react to this
decision? Would they roll over and say, “Okay,” or would they resist? And so
on. So it was—that was the thesis of the [article]. So it got a lot of attention. So
it made—really made Wiley’s reputation in the business, and as—and I’m sure
other things, too. Anyway, he got a job at the University of Texas. In those
days—it’s startling to learn—Texas did not pay very well, salary-wise. And so I
think that probably motivated him. He was only at Texas very briefly. He had
visited. He’s been a visitor. They said, “Why don’t you stay?” He did. He was
there, like, a year and a half, and Illinois offered him a much more remunerative
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 95 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ job and he moved up to Illinois. And in 1961 he got me a visitorship up there to
Illinois and it was a remarkably classy school. They had a strong, strong faculty.
I can’t give you all the details anymore, but they had some really top-notch people
from top to bottom up there, including the fact that we had worked out a deal be-
tween Illinois and our school on graduate assistants. They used to hire graduate
assistants—like, two a year. Now, we had four years in a row of four outstanding
graduates of ours. Dan Dobbs, who had been out of school five years working in
Fort Smith, but who now has written—you know, rewritten Prosser’s book on
torts . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
[02:57:15.25] AW: . . . and wrote the classic Hornbook on Remedies, and is out in Ari-
zona, I think. He was one. A guy named Don Smith. I’m drawing a blank. No,
Richard Smith. But Don Smith got on the federal power commission. Richard
Smith became its leading attorney and has then joined the faculty at [the Universi-
ty of] North Carolina, I’m pretty sure. And then the fourth was my favorite. Her-
bert David Blair of Batesville, Arkansas—went by David. I like to tease him on
the Herbert part—who has become an extraordinarily successful lawyer on an in-
terstate basis and all this stuff. So four really top-notch—I went up there—you
know, so we had a connection. Then he got another job, and I think it was a re-
al—and, again, it was a big step—to Georgia. And so by the time the troubles oc-
curred that we—you mentioned—late 1960s, early 1970s—a lot of people wanted
George—Wiley back here, and particularly E. J. Ball, because E. J. had been
Wiley’s student. And they had really become very—they had bonded very close-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 96 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ ly. And [AW clears his throat]—excuse me—so E. J. was also instrumental in
getting him back here. But we wanted him back here because we thought that he
would be a good candidate for the deanship because he was an Arkansan to the
extent described, but he was not involved in all of these internal disputes and hos-
tilities. And—and he could talk to everybody. In other words, he could have an
open relationship with everybody. So he was brought back with that understand-
ing, that when the job opened up, people like me were gonna support him as
strongly as we could. And that’s what happened. So . . .
PW: How was . . .?
AW: . . . he became the dean and served as dean through—I believe, say, up to about
1980 would be my guess. I can’t give you exact years on any of this, but . . .
PW: That’s great.
[02:59:36.24] AW: Now, he—Wiley—Wiley got into a little controversy over the Lit-
tle Rock law school. He—he—he—I’m not sure of the details, but—but some of
the people who supported it very strongly got mad at him, and I don’t know
what—what the consequences that were, except some of ’em were our alumni, so
that’s always a concern. But I think he had alternatives. I know that not long af-
ter—he stayed on here for a while, but then he went down to—and—and—and
taught a number of years at a law school in Texas. I want to say it’s called Texas
Wesleyan, and I think it’s in the Fort Worth/Arlington area, and it was started up
by a man who had been his colleague years before at Texas, a man named Frank
Elliott, who was a dear friend of Wiley’s. And at—at—at one time Frank and—
and Wiley were mutual candidates for the deanship at Texas Tech, and Frank beat
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 97 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ him out, so to speak. But they were friends. And Frank hired him at his school
down at—wherever it was in the Fort Worth area. And Wiley taught down there
many—many years also. After him was a man—I think he’s the one that’s been
kind of forgotten, though he’s an extraordinarily interesting guy, named David
Epstein. David was a professor at Texas and a—a—I’ll use the word genius.
He’s probably the number one commercial law man in the country. At one time
we had him and Steve Nichols on our faculty. It was like having—well, I have to
go back in terms—I’m not sure, but—well, let’s say it’s like having [Arkansas
Razorback football running backs] Darren McFadden and Felix Jones in the same
back field. [Laughter] Like, number one and number three, you know? They—
they—both of ‘em—so—so it was my—David was a brilliant, brilliant man, and
his—he had—he had graduated from the University of Texas and he was on their
faculty. And his dream, obviously—he made—he was the sort of person—he
could not—he could not control his secret desires. He would—people knew that
he would do anything to be the dean at Texas. Now, whether his being Jewish
helped or hurt is one of those questions that you—always fascinates you. But he
became eligible to be the dean here—here, because he found out that they didn’t
even send his name in to be a candidate at Austin when the job opened up and it
hurt him—hurt him. So he said he’s, by God, gonna do whatever it takes to—to
get his résumé up. So he came up here. His résumé was so—I remember I was
on the search committee, and his résumé was so vastly superior to all other candi-
dates, I made a motion that we just cut all this [laughs] nonsense out and—and of-
fer him the job, because—and he came in and he was brilliant, and I think a great
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 98 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ dean with one major weakness, and that is he could not control people who didn’t
like deans and tried to subvert his tenure. But he taught—he was—he talked up
the Law School. He was intelligent. I—I think he was intellectually the best we
ever had by a large margin. But the job at Texas was opening up again, so he on-
ly served three years and he moved back there. And he has stayed close with
some of us. I hear from him every year. And he became dean at Emory [Univer-
sity] and he invited me to be—I taught there once, and—and he invited me to help
him raise some money once at a fund-raiser that he was giving. Some of the stu-
dents who I had taught had since gone on to fame and fortune, especially fortune,
and I was supposed to help him in his efforts, you know? That sort of thing. I—
I—I like him a lot—a very outstanding guy. But he only was here three years.
He was replaced by Jake Looney. You want to talk about a social contrast? Jake
is the perfect counterpart to this Epstein guy. Jake’s from a . . .
TM: We need to take a break. I’m sorry. Need to change tapes.
AW: Sure.
[Tape Stopped]
[03:04:23.12] AW: Steve, and they make him an offer and he said, “No.” Came back
here. And so that just made me feel warm all over. But then Minnesota came
along, and I knew it was a different type of deal. And I heard he was actually
considering going up there. So my two great arguments . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[03:04:40.26] AW: . . . were—“One, if you here you’ll be the next Leflar.” I thought,
you know, “He—he’s God and you’re Christ,” or something like that. [Laughter]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 99 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ It was at that level. And then—and then—“And, secondly, think of your family.
They’re gonna freeze to death.” [Laughter] Those were—like, all the other ar-
guments were silly—you know, academic arguments—quality of school or any-
thing like that. I just—“Think of your family.” [Laughs] Oh! Have you ever
been up there? It’s cold. Everything. [Laughter] You know, like, I—I call my
Wisconsin friend every day. Three nights ago they had nine inches of snow.
PW: Good Lord.
AW: Nine inches of snow.
[Tape Stopped]
[03:05:25.15] AW: . . . [in the] NCAA for committees.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: Because I treated everybody so nice. I was the exact opposite. I let anybody
talk—say . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: And sum up their views accurately and objectively. And also with a sense of hu-
mor. I read poetry to ’em once in a while.
PW: [Laughs] At the NCAA committees?
AW: Yep.
PW: Bet that was a nice, refreshing change.
[03:06:08.23] AW: Well, they—I liked those—I liked how people from around the
country—they—they were so nice. I mean, it’s great—it was great—it was a
great experience—great time. I finally concluded I knew every president and eve-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 100 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ ry athletic director at every [laughs] university in the country. I didn’t know any-
body else. [Laughter]
PW: Wow, that’s an accomplishment.
AW: But those were the two levels—AD and president.
PW: [Laughs]
SL: I bet you enjoy facing P.J. a little bit better than you enjoyed facing me, huh?
AW: Well . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . so long as I’m still rational.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: Where were we? I was—I was building up to something and then I got—or was
that earlier?
[03:06:59.09] PW: You were—you were finishing up Epstein’s tenure, I think.
AW: Yes, and I was getting into . . .
PW: In fact, you were getting to Jake Looney.
AW: Jake—Jake Looney. Interestingly enough, what happened was that we had started
the first—and, for all I know, still only graduate program in agri[cultural] busi-
ness on our campus, and Jake was hired to take over that program—to start it up
and—and I don’t know what—I don’t know what title he had. Maybe director of
the agri business program—graduate—led into a master’s degree in law with that
specialty. And Jake, as it turned out, was from [Arkansas]—he was from Mena.
Grew up, I think, on a cattle ranch down there, which he inherited, and came to—
went to school—I think it—I think it was called Southern Arkansas University.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 101 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ I’m not sure what town it’s in. [Editor’s Note: SAU is in Magnolia] But I know
that wherever it—whichever one he went to down there, he was highly regarded
because he was a strong candidate to be president years later. He came to law
school here and he was my student, and he and I have talked a lot about the fact
that the first day of class he used to give you a hand—a printout of all the names,
kind of a pre-computer era. And I’m looking down the list and I see a name—
Looney. Well, that struck me as an odd name. I don’t know. You know, I’m
embarrassed to say that now, but—“Well, I gotta call on that—whoever that—”
So he’s the first guy I ever called on that year was—was Jake, so he’s never for-
gotten it and—and I didn’t either. But he transferred away and finished up, I
think, at one of the University of Missouris—could’ve been in Kansas City. And
he never taught in law school. He always taught in agriculture departments at—
and I think he was at Kansas or Kansas State . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
[03:09:10.14] AW: . . . when we hired him. So he had no law school background, real-
ly, as an academic, but he picked it up [quickly]. And he—he was—he was a
good fellow. He was the sort of guy that could kind of work well with all factions
and it was hard not to like him and—and—and find him easy to deal with. So he
became our dean. He wasn’t well-treated by the administration, salary-wise.
They had—they hadn’t caught up and for some reason—I don’t know whoever
was in charge in those days. I can’t remember. But I don’t think Jake was treated
right. I know that the faculty—the senior faculty if they worked in summer
school made more money than he did, for example, which is not right. And he—
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 102 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ he kind of—he—he kind of resented, I think, that treatment. So he resigned after
a number of years and—and has since left the faculty, and last I heard he’s been
elected judge back in Mena and working his cattle. And I hope—I wish him well,
’cause he was a very likeable guy. But they were sort of quiet years under him.
And then Len Strickman was hired, and Len was really the first professional expe-
rienced dean we ever had at the time he was hired. He had been dean for, like,
nine years at Northern Illinois and his personality is such was—he knew every
dean in the country. He went to all the meetings and—and he was a professional
dean. He was—for a good bit of his tenure—first of all, during the first part of it I
was really busy with the athletic world, and I—I saw very little of him. And that
little—I got along with him okay. But a lot of the faculty had their problems with
him and a lot of students did, too. He tried to be friendly and open with every—
all the interest groups, but wasn’t always successful in obtaining what he—
whatever he wanted. And then I retired, technically, in 1994, so I haven’t been to
a faculty meeting since then, because officially I’m not a member of the faculty,
as I understand the definition. I’m an emeritus or something and my working
thing is adjunct, without any particular special rights. So I take all that very seri-
ously, and I—I—I—I was missing in action from a lot of his tenure, so I know
most—about it mostly, not so much first-hand as from the various—well, I’ll call
it the gossip around the school and from students and so on and so on. He—he
did do one thing that’s still with us and that is he’s the one who created what I
would call the legal writing empire and the heavy emphasis on legal writing,
which now permeates the academic program. I had no first-hand experience of it
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 103 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ and I don’t have any idea whatever—how successful that program has been. It’s
sure a far cry from the days when I was involved in it—much more of an invest-
ment today and the people who are involved. He—he seemed to rub a faction of
the faculty the wrong way, and I don’t know—I don’t—I—I—but I—I—I’m not
dodging the issues so much as I’m really not aware of who had problems with
him and for what reason. I—I was just simply too withdrawn and, as I say, since
I’ve retired in—technically, at the end of the 1994 academic year, I’ve stayed
away from—from all that. And then, of course, he was replaced in a way by
Dean [Richard “Dick”] Atkinson—that his status was changed, and he became—
as I understand it, Richard was dean—legally the dean—but there was an under-
standing—I don’t know if it was written anywhere, but it was an understanding
that he would not be the dean after a certain period. And the one they finally ar-
ranged at was, I think, when the new building was finished . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
[03:13:57.13] AW: . . . which, I guess, by now it would’ve been. And then—then it
would open up for a search. Well, it was in fact opened up for a search, and they
did—they did have candidates and they did settle on a couple of ‘em, and then all
of a sudden the faculty decided they weren’t happy with the—the applicants and
decided to not hire anybody and start—and start over again once the building is
completed. So is it? I don’t know. I haven’t kept up. Meanwhile, Dean [Cyn-
thia] Nance is basically under the same arrangement that Richard Atkinson was
under, with the understanding that once it’s all over, her tenure will—as dean will
be over, but she can apply, of course, to succeed herself, so to speak, if she wants.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 104 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [03:14:48.14] PW: Where did Robert Moberly fit in in all of this?
AW: I have—that’s a good point. I missed him. I—he fit—he replaced Strickman.
That was it. And Bob was—this, again, is the—a classic example of—of my not
being around. But as I understand it, he was summarily dismissed after just two
or three years. And it was something of a faculty revolt—internal. And—but I—
oh, I—well, let me put it this way. I knew he was dean one day and resigned the
next day with no warning. Now, what—what prompted that, I’d have to just rely
on gossip, but I don’t feel like doing that. And—and why he was given those
stark choices, I don’t know either and don’t want to guess. I’ve heard the stories,
but I don’t want to repeat ’em . . .
PW: Sure.
[03:15:52.08] AW: . . . since they’re just—it’s just as I say—gossip. And I have no
basis for believing or disbelieving it. But he—yeah, he was real easy to overlook
now that I think about it. He’s still on the faculty, and Dick took over from him.
PW: Hmm.
[03:16:15.09] AW: Dick was an interim dean, as they say, twice—once, when I think
Jake Looney retired and before we hired Strickman, he was also interim dean.
Nobody knew—this is—to me this just shows you how stupid it is, really—how
people don’t learn that you can’t look at somebody and say “They’ll be good” or
“They—they shouldn’t even be considered because of this or that thing.” Nobody
in the world would’ve predicted that Richard Atkinson turned out to be the great-
est dean in the history of our law school and all the other law schools I’ve been
at—ain’t nobody been like him. And who would’ve guessed it? Not me.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 105 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [03:16:56.23] PW: What was he—what was he like?
AW: Well, that’s interesting. He—he came here under—I’m very fond of him and I
get a little emotional still. Go back to the Clintons. Bill [Clinton] applied and
was hired in 1973. He started in the fall of 1973. Hillary [Rodham Clinton] was
hired and started in the fall of 1974. After about a year—about 1975, in other
words, we had a vacancy, and you get somebody to teach property—in the prop-
erty area. And Bill takes the credit, but my memory is it was Hillary who recom-
mended this friend of hers from Yale Law School, Richard Atkinson, who was
then with the big King and Spaulding law firm in Atlanta [Georgia]. And she
thought that—I guess she had reason to know that he would be interested in leav-
ing the law practice world and—and coming up here to teach. And so we got in
touch with him, and then the rest is history. He did accept the job and—but he
came here because of the Clintons knowing him at Yale. His first year or two—
apparently—I—I gather—it could’ve been nervousness, but he—there were a
couple of students, but I don’t think it was a majority or even a large minority—
but a couple of students complained ’cause he’d occasionally—when he’d get
emotional in class and impassioned, that he might stutter a bit. They—they—
but—and so he got some criticism the first year or two. I don’t know how wide-
spread it was or—or how fair it was. But all I know is that under our program,
whereby tenured members of the faculty visit untenured members’ classes period-
ically, I went to see him after he’d been here—I’ll say four or five years. I
thought he was just super-duper. I’m real proud I stumbled across the [recom-
mendation]—the—the letter—the memo I wrote about my visit to him, and I just
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 106 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ did nothing but praise him. So should make me feel better than if I’d said some-
thing else. I thought he was a great classroom teacher. He—I remember two dif-
ferent times—once it involved my mother-in-law and some property she had, and
once it involved my former wife and property she had, and I had legal questions
about property—property matters, and I went to him. And I know when—when
people—lawyers or colleagues or students came to me with a real-life contracts
problem, man, they had to wait for an answer. They didn’t get any answer just
talking to me. I’d say, “Well, I’ll get back to you,” and I’d go look up the answer.
He gave me the answer—zip, zip, zip—right off the top of his head. I tell ya, I
was so proud of him and so jealous I could’ve hit him. He knew—he knew his
subject in and out—telling me what statutes were involved and how they were in-
terpreted and the cases, and I gave up. I was impressed with those experiences.
In fact, I asked him to write my will [laughter], which he did.
PW: What was he . . .?
[03:20:46.16] AW: Then starting about 1990—I’m not sure why I started doing this,
but I started to torment him. I’d say that when—that when I’m gone and if they
have a memorial service for me, he had to do my eulogy. And I tormented him all
those years. Every time I saw him I said, “Remember. Remember, you’re gonna
do my eulogy.” And he’d laugh at me or ignore me most of the time. And he had
the personality that I can’t grasp. It just—as you look back now, you realize he—
he knew everything there was to know about you. He made you feel like you
were the most important person around. He’d all—he knew everything you want-
ed a friend to know, and he treated you so well. He had such a remarkable per-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 107 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ sonality. [Editor’s Note: Richard Atkinson died in August 2005] And he was a
great dean. I can’t—even after his memorial service I was—I—I really didn’t
want to move, and there was a crowd—slow getting out, so I just waited behind
and so did John White, our chancellor. And I didn’t know him worth a—I’d nev-
er spoken to him before directly—certainly, not one on one. And as we were
leaving, he started telling me what he thought, and he said he was so superior to
all the other deans on campus. He said he walked into his first—you know, he—
and he was really just an interim. Everybody knew it. He just wouldn’t—he
wouldn’t work as an interim because they—they didn’t pay any more. He wanted
to be paid as a dean.
PW: Hmm.
[03:22:43.03] AW: ’Cause they had—they had gypped him in the 1990 switchover,
where he—he worked—he did all that work, taught all his courses, and was dean
and didn’t get an extra penny—not an extra dollar. So he wasn’t gonna do that
again. So that’s why they—that’s why they had to make him dean instead of in-
terim, was he—you know, either that or—or else. And White said that he walks
into this—the room—the first deans’ meeting—he just took it over. So he—and
he started telling me about what a loss it was for the law school—telling me. So
that’s the impact he had.
[03:23:25.24] PW: Any particular stories?
AW: Huh?
PW: Any particular stories that stand out in your mind of your relationship with him?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 108 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Well, you gotta understand that I’m a lot older than these people, and I didn’t—I
didn’t—you know, I—with the Clintons and with Dick and his generation and—
and—not to mention the ones after that, is I—I’m—they were all too young for
me to fool with, so I didn’t hang out with them. And then over the years I got in-
creasingly bored with law school parties and things like that, so it was all my
fault. I didn’t have—I didn’t have the kind of one-on-one relationships with—
with—I’m—I’m sure I had—he cooked a meal once for my wife and I, which was
some Southern recipe for pork chops, which I thought were delicious. He—he
built that—his first house—it had a waterfall in back, which I thought was great.
I don’t know. I just—I always looked up to him, too, even though he was just, as
far as I’m concerned, a baby. And what else is there? I don’t know.
[03:24:49.10] PW: Oh, I’ll pause for a minute and take you back to where you kind of
touched on a minute ago. But back into the 1970s and—tell me about your first
time you met the Clintons.
AW: Well, that was—that’s very interesting to me because I was chair of—of—it had a
formal name, but it was the committee to hire professors, and—which meant it
was a lot of dog work because all these applications would come in—you’d have
to review ’em if you had a vacancy. And you might have 1,000 of ’em to look
through, so we parceled it out. But, nevertheless—but now we have a vacancy,
and I get a letter in May from a man named Burke Marshall—a name that I hope
doesn’t mean anything to you, but it did to me, because Burke Marshall—I don’t
know if you ever remember, there was a governor of Georgia named George Wal-
lace [Editor’s Note: George Wallace was the governor of Alabama], and when
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 109 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ they tried to integrate the University of Alabama [in 1963], a young black woman
was supposed to be—I forget her name [Vivian Malone], but she became famous
on PBS [Public Broadcasting Station] later—she was supposed to be admitted.
And George Wallace is standing in the door of the admissions office, and there’s
a young man in a black—a dark suit standing there from the [US] Department of
Justice, handing him some sort of order to get his butt out of the doorway. And
the guy that’s handing him that is Burke Marshall. He was number two man in
the Department of Justice under [US Attorney General] Robert “Bobby” Kenne-
dy, and—and as everybody said, they—he—they had to put somebody like him in
there so there’d be some brains in the Justice Department—Bobby, not being
much of a lawyer. That was Burke Marshall. Now, after the [President John F.]
Kennedy years are gone, Burke goes back to Yale and becomes a professor,
where Clinton is his student. He also became Kennedy family lawyer, so he—he
had some good things on his résumé. And I get a letter from Burke Marshall. It
says, “I recommend one of my students, William J. Clinton, for a position on your
faculty,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I said, “Who the hell is William J. Clinton?
He hasn’t applied for anything.” So I didn’t—the name—zero meaning. About a
week later I get a letter from William J. Clinton. Now, the—the big negative was
he hadn’t yet graduated from law school, and you’d think that you ought to at
least have a law degree before you get hired as a law professor. But, on the other
hand, he was a Rhodes Scholar, and we ain’t had any of them since William J.
Fulbright was a Rhodes Scholar—as it turns out, of course, that’s why Clinton’s a
Rhodes Scholar, on account of William J. But, be that as it may, Clinton made it
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 110 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ easy to interview him, even though he wasn’t qualified because he said in his let-
ter, “I’m coming to Fayetteville anyway,” so there will be no expense in bringing
him up here. He’s paying his own way. “So could we meet on Sunday,” whatev-
er the date—it was May, I think—“at the Fayetteville Country Club.” So I take
my two boys out for Sunday brunch, and eventually this guy shows up and I’ve
thought about this moment a lot over the years. Do you know who ‘Lil Abner
was?
PW: Hmm.
AW: He looked a lot like ‘Lil Abner.
PW: [Laughs]
[03:28:25.28] AW: He’s about the same height. He had that big mass of hair, and—
but the most striking comparison was that he had what clearly was his high school
graduation suit on, because—they used to call it high water, but the cuffs were,
like, up this far from the—on the ankle. And it—and—and at that point it be-
comes somewhat mysterious, because about fifteen minutes after the—we met,
I—I was all—all in favor of hiring him. I was all in favor of being his campaign
manager and his advocate, which I was. I later went—and my boys were good—
would follow him anywhere, and—and he was up around introducing himself to
all the diners at the Fayetteville Country Club because, as we later found out, the
reason he came here was to test the waters for running for Congress. I didn’t
know any of that. Again, I’m so innocent and naive. I didn’t know. But that’s
why he came here, is ’cause it was the so-called Watergate election when all the
Republican congressmen were in trouble and many of ’em defeated because of
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 111 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Watergate. And [Republican] John Paul Hammerschmidt’s only real campaign
was when Clinton at least scared him [Editor’s Note: by running as Ham-
merschmidt’s opponent]. But I didn’t know any of that. So we went back and—
and I think everybody—all the ones I remember felt pretty much as I did, and that
is “Gee, we wish he had a law degree—but, God, a Rhodes Scholar,” you know?
And—and then it—one—he did have one thing that kind of mitigated the lack of
a degree, and that is he had taught constitutional law at a night law school in New
Haven [Connecticut]. I think it’s called New Haven Law School or something.
And so he’d had actual teaching experience, so he got hired. So he shows up in—
in the fall semester, and then the Association of American Law Schools always
has its convention in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day—you
know, like December 28, 29, 30—something like that. And this year it was in
New Orleans [Louisiana], and we were—we were hiring, and I was smart enough
to say, “Why don’t we put Clinton on the committee, since—I mean, you know,
the way he would—people would respond to him.” And he was smart enough to
call Hillary, who was working up in Washington [DC] to say “Why don’t you
come down here and have a nice little trip to New Orleans—expenses paid,” et
cetera, et cetera, the—together. So that’s how I met her was down in New Orle-
ans, and she and I bonded very closely. He wanted to—Clinton wanted to go to
some restaurant called Two Jacks, which is well known down there, but not as
close to the hotels as—and so you had to walk four, five, six blocks, and—and
nobody knew exactly where it was, so we just kind of wandered—strolling. They
got ahead and Hillary and I talked at great length on the way to the restaurant and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 112 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ kinda hit it off real good. So—but there was no talk about hiring at that time.
And then later on, at that time Steve Clark was our assistant dean, and he had met
them and, you know, we were all kind of a happy group, and—and a—a vacancy
occurred and Steve said to me, “Why don’t we hire Hillary?” And by then the so-
called [President Richard] Nixon impeachment was on its last legs and—and died
that summer, and so she was available. And so she got hired the next year. So
that’s how I met the Clintons. And Bill’s career here was pretty much involved
with running for office, which was complicated because the university had no pol-
icy for giving a leave of absence to a faculty member who wanted to run for a
public position. Obviously, you should take a leave of absence and go do your
thing, but they had no—they had no way to arrange that. It was kind of like—
and—and—and lacked, of course, the imagination or the courage to develop one
on the spot. But he had—he had three tough races fairly early in his time here.
One was the primary for the Democratic nomination. Then there was a run-off
and then, of course, there was the general election. So he—he was distracted
through all that. There’s no question about it. I did attend his class on that same
kind of program, and he was brilliant. He knew I was coming and I’m sure he
was prepared, but he was brilliant, as you would imagine. But the students knew
that his heart wasn’t in it and he wasn’t always as prepared as he should be. He
probably relied a lot on his memory or skimming something just before class, you
know? That’s my guess. I don’t know the facts. Hillary, on the other hand, was
a—her years here—her two years—was the typical hardworking professor. She
lectured. Students thought she was very bright. She taught crim[inal] law, and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 113 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ she started the clinic program, and—and she did a good job. I think the students
had a great deal of respect for her. I’m not sure what she was like in class. I
don’t know if they had warm and fuzzy feelings or—it’s hard for me to think of
that, but she was—she was all business. She used to make me mad. She made
me mad twice. I had taught at Emory for a time, and they had a great policy for
faculty meetings, and that was it would last one hour and it could not go beyond
that hour unless there was unanimous consent.
PW: [Laughs]
[03:34:36.26] AW: Unanimous consent, okay? One hour. And when I came back I
said, “Hey, you know, guys—I’ve got this great idea. [Laughs] Let’s have one
hour and can’t go beyond—unanimous consent.” Well, she came aboard and
we’d had that rule. When she came on board she said, “No, two hours. Two
hours.” And, of course, I lost. So we’d have to sit there for two hours. Now,
you—you don’t always have two hours of anything to talk about. So she—Steve
Nichols—it was the hound dog. Do you remember David [Pryor] and his hound
proposal . . .
SL: Yeah.
[03:35:24.19] AW: . . . when he was governor? And Steve was involved in drafting all
that stuff?
SL: Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
AW: And she said that’s how we found out . . .
SL: Coon—coon dog.
AW: Huh?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 114 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Coon dog.
AW: That’s—I’m sorry. Yeah. Coon dog—the coon dog [proposal]. Well, we’ll hold
that for another time, ’cause I don’t know, either. But it was called the coon dog
proposal, and it was a massive reorganization of state government and local gov-
ernment—a massive one—and Steve Nichols, who was, like, fourteen years old at
the time . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[03:35:49.04] AW: . . . was heavily involved in—in this project. So now he’s on our
faculty. And he’s—the poor guy’s sitting there one day and we’re running out of
business, but Hillary won’t leave ’cause it ain’t two hours, so she looks over at
Steve. “Steve, tell us all about the coon dog program.” And I’m sitting here say-
ing, “I don’t want to know about the damn coon dog [program]. I want outta
here.” You know?
PW: [Laughs]
[03:36:10.13] AW: There was a lot of tension ’cause she was so dedicated to the job.
The other was we got in an argument over discipline. She said [Frank] Broyles
was a racist because [of a] discipline problem. And the—the discipline prob-
lem—this is—boy, thank God you don’t spend your life trying to control eight-
een-, nineteen-year-old athletic boys. Whoo! [Laughs] There was this young
black male and Frank got mad at him because, A, he was smoking marijuana and
B, he was distributing it to the team. And—and marijuana, as I understand it,
does not have a performance-enhancing effect, but the opposite, okay? Plus—
which it’s illegal. So Frank had to remove—remove him from the team. Now,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 115 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ about a year later, this guy—God, I wish I could remember his name. He was a
white kid from Fort Smith, and there used to be a—a gas station down there on—
on the Highway 71, about two or three blocks north of the courthouse area. There
was a gas station—a Phillips 66. And the guy that owned it had a collection of
handguns that he’d sell to ya if you—you’d get your gas and your oil and your
handgun [laughs] at the—at this gas station. And he had a whole wall filled with
‘em. So—I wish I could remember the name of the youngster from Fort Smith.
But he comes in there—he gets his gas tank filled and he goes in to pay his bill
and he sees those handguns, and he can’t contain himself. He pays his bill, he
grabs a handgun, runs out, jumps in the car—he’s stealing it. He’s not shooting
anybody, he’s stealing it. He didn’t make—he didn’t make it to 6th Street,
down—heading—heading home. [Laughter] The—the—the cops were on him,
like, within three blocks. So he’s arrested. And I guess he pled guilty or some-
thing. Now it’s the sentencing phase, okay? And Frank is asked to go down and
give a character thing, and what Frank is trying to say is “He’s just, you know,
nineteen, twenty years old—don’t send him to the bad place down there. Put him
on probation and let him stay in school. That’s a better chance for rehabilitation.”
So Frank’s got a good argument, you know? He’s . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
[03:38:55.15] AW: I mean, at least it’s a plausible argument. It’s one—best interest of
the boy, okay? And—and Judge [Maupin] Cummings—he knew the strength of
the argument, but he—his—what he said to Frank was—he said, “I can’t do that,”
he said, “or people will say I give athletes special treatment,” you know? Well,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 116 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Hillary just thought it was terrible that Frank spoke up for the boy, ’cause he was
white, and the one that he got mad at—the marijuana guy—was black, and then
some of ’em made him racist. I thought that was a pretty strong example of ap-
ples and oranges. It’s in one case—he was the one that decided guilt and punish-
ment. In the other, he’s just asking a judge who’s gonna decide punishment.
Guilt’s been established. What the nature of it should be—what’s in the best in-
terest and—? And it struck me that they were not contradictory or racist or—
could’ve changed the races of the two boys around and made the same decisions,
et cetera. So we had a big argument about that. But—and then also, she want-
ed—she—when we had a [football]—when [head football coach] Lou Holtz—no,
it wasn’t Lou Holtz, it was when Frank resigned and he named Lou Holtz coach.
She wanted to know why we hadn’t interviewed any women.
PW: [Laughs] As coach?
[03:40:15.22] AW: And I said, “Because we didn’t—there weren’t any qualified that
applied, as far as I knew.” I mean, I—I wasn’t nasty about it. And she said,
“Well, there was a women’s football team in Dallas,” and I didn’t point out to her
that I didn’t think that because some women were playing tackle football in Dal-
las, that they were qualified to be head coach up here.
PW: [Laughs]
[03:40:38.18] AW: Without at least being an assistant coach somewhere in between.
Yes, we had three arguments.
[03:40:45.27] JE: What were the clinics that she established?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 117 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: She—she established The Legal Clinic, which is still there. It’s now kind of an
empire of its own.
PW: Uh-huh.
AW: They—and she could tell you more about it than I can. But they—they’re very
active—they seem to be.
PW: Yeah.
AW: And they’ve got a lot of people working there. But I think it’s mostly for indi-
gents, isn’t it . . .
PW: Yes, sir.
AW: . . . or students or both?
PW: Students—indigents—students [ ] law students . . .
AW: It gives—it gives indigents a representation and it gives students real—real-life
experience, and . . .
PW: Exactly.
[03:41:17.02] AW: And—and every law school I’m confident in the country has some-
thing of that nature for the same reasons. And it was a fad that developed in the
1970s, because it’s always been this tension, which I think is very real, and law
schools don’t do anything about particularly, and that is we—we teach ’em ab-
stractions, and—and once they leave they’re not dealing with abstractions pretty
much. They’re dealing with real-life problems. And the—the adjustment to being a practicing lawyer is, I’m sure, severe. I know it was in my case. It
was very severe. I—I—I would still be a practicing lawyer in Milwaukee if I had
been given a good course in how to—how to be a practicing lawyer, as opposed to
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 118 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ just somebody good at taking examinations. I was the sort of person that needed
mentoring and—but I think once I got the mentoring, then I—I might be pretty
good. But—or at least better than average. But I—I just happened to need it and
didn’t get it, and I’m a very—I’m guessing that that’s important to me, but that’s
the way I actually feel. Some people just pick it up. It’s like anything else, you
know? I knew these two guys in college. One—one had studied French for years
as a student—couldn’t say ten words and he couldn’t understand five, and another
guy had never studied it one day, but he’d been in France during the war. By the
time he left home he was a native, you know? [Laughter] People are wired dif-
ferently, I think is the reason. And I took two years of French, and “Oui, oui,
monsieur” is about the extent of it.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: I think that’s French.
[03:43:12.27] PW: How—how did the Clintons—what was their relationship like?
AW: Speak up.
PW: I’m sorry, sir. What was the Clintons’ relationship like with the other faculty?
Do you know?
AW: Oh, yeah, I think—I think—there were a lot of older guys in the faculty at the
time I—I had some doubts about, ’cause I thought they were jealous. You know,
when you get old it’s—it’s easy to be jealous of your—you know, you’re sixty-
five—you’re seventy years old and—I’m getting kind of philosophical, but
there’s a—there’s something called male menopause that hits about fifty, and
it’s—and the Peggy Lee song, “Is That All There Is?” You know, you say, “Here
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 119 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ I am, fifty years old, and I guess this is about as far as I’m ever gonna go in life,
you know?” Well, then, thereafter it just gets kinda more and more—I don’t
know—I don’t want to use too many strong words, but—and then there’s some
guy comes along, like Clinton, who’s not even thirty years old and smarter than
you and more charismatic than you, and you’re saying—you know, there’s a jeal-
ousy factory comes in. So a lot of older guys are just jealous of the younger gen-
eration—especially the ones that clearly have superior ability, even if they them-
selves had had superior ability at one time or another. And—and we had a num-
ber of them. Had at least a half a dozen around like that. So it’s interesting that
when it came to Clinton, they didn’t seem to feel so much about him. And we ac-
tually sat around—now, you gotta remember—he was, like, twenty-seven, twen-
ty-eight years old, and we used to say, “You know, it’s regrettable he’s from Ar-
kansas, ’cause this guy could be president.” [Laughter] And I am telling you,
that is the truth. That is the 100 percent truth. We’d sit around maybe having—
having coffee or just bull—bulling around, you know, and somebody would say,
“Boy, that guy—he is smart. He is this, he is that. He would be president. But,
of course, he’s from Arkansas. He ain’t got a chance.”
PW: [Laughs]
[03:45:12.21] AW: And Hillary—Hillary in—in person a lot—is a—is not—what was
she called—a monster? She’s not like that at all when you’re—when you’re with
her as a—as—as she would be right here with us now. She’s—it’s just such a dis-
tortion. I—I don’t even like to think about it. First of all, she knows how to get
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 120 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ along with men. You—you—you cozy up to ’em and give ’em a little thrill. And
especially if they’re sixty, seventy years old—they just melt.
PW: [Laughs]
[03:45:53.28] AW: And she knows it, and she knew how to do that. I’ve seen her
make the old Establishment guys in the Arkansas Bar when she wanted to get
something from ’em at a—we were on a judicial reorganization committee to-
gether—the two of us. I watched her work. And she—she’s like the only woman
in the room. She had ’em eating out of her hands. And—on the other hand, she
can—her problem is public—when she’s in public. She—she—she Jekylls and
Hydes it. When she’s not in public, she’s a lot of fun, she’s easy to talk to. She
has got a streak in her—I told you I got mad at her. She was—a bit—her—her
defining moment was when Bill lost [the gubernatorial race against Republican
Frank White] in 1980. That’s what really changed her. I think that terrified her,
and a lot of people—she—I—I wouldn’t talk to her for a while back then. She
got very hostile and negative until he got back on the winning track. But I think
the faculty—certainly, they respected her. They couldn’t help but—how can you
help not respect her intelligence and her—and her work ethic? And the fact
that—she didn’t—you know, she didn’t have any hidden agenda that—she—she
wasn’t out to cut your throat. She wasn’t out to—you know, “There—there’s
guys over there—I know they were out to get me and disparage, you know, be-
hind my back,” and stuff like that. And that goes on everywhere—that sort of
thing. I don’t think she—I don’t think she had any of that in her. She just—she’s
a Methodist. [Laughter] She wants to do good, you know?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 121 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Yes, sir. [Laughs]
[03:47:42.23] AW: And she wants—and, of course, she’s got—she’s got human fail-
ings, like if she wants something done, because she’s a good person, then it must
be good and—you know, and all that. And cynics might say, “Well, there’s some
hidden—hidden consequences here. Are you aware of them?” And—and, you
know, not everything she does is—is selfless. But it—so I know she has—she has
failings. But nothing like the picture some people try to draw. And I think the
faculty at that time respected her—maybe were a little intimidated by her, ’cause
she is real bright. And a little scared of the fact that she was so hardworking and
hardly anybody else is to that extent. But I don’t remember anything—I don’t
remember anything negative about her tenure here.
[03:48:48.08] PW: Hmm. Were there many other women on the faculty at that time?
AW: Well, there were. We—we had several, and—and I used to make fun of ’em be-
cause there was a—what was her name? Her husband helped destroy the [Arkan-
sas] Gazette [newspaper] and now—and now runs the Arkansas Times—Max
Brantley.
SL: Uh-huh.
PW: Yeah.
[03:49:05.21] AW: His wife is named something else, but she’s a judge. She was on
our faculty, and there was a woman named Elizabeth [Roshenbaugh?] or some-
thing like that—it’ll come to me in a minute—from Iowa, who never wanted to be
a law professor. We—we really twisted her arm because we wanted women on
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 122 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ the faculty and there weren’t that many around to—to get—to get—that would
consider you. And we twisted her arm, and she was a here a couple years. But
you could tell she wasn’t happy. I think she was—she was more than adequate,
she just wasn’t happy doing this. And she—she ended up being a big-shot in the
attorney general’s office in Iowa, which is her native—native state. And then
there was another woman who was about as incompetent as anybody we’ve ever
had, and I walked by the—her talking to a group of her students after her real
property class, and she was telling ’em things about the statute of frauds that not
even Abbott and Costello would say. And I’m pleased to say I helped get rid of
her. She was dumb. But they all left, like, the same year.
PW: [Laughs]
[03:50:27.12] AW: And three of ’em left because of their husbands. That’s what I
used to—damn women. You can’t trust ‘em. They’re gonna follow the guy. Hil-
lary. Why’d she go to Little Rock? ’Cause that’s where Bill was. Mrs. Brantley.
Who was the third? Well, there was somebody in there. Then we had some—we
had another woman who was never in residence, ’cause she had some serious ail-
ment and wouldn’t tell any—would refuse to tell the dean what her problem was.
Nobody knew, except she was always in the hospital in Little Rock. And it was—
it was very serious and she died, but the fact that she would never tell anybody.
They—academics let people get away with murder. “I want a medical leave.”
“Okay, what’s wrong with ya?” “I’m not gonna tell ya.” In the—now, do you
think men could get away with that? [Laughter] Are you with me? Secondly . . .
PW: [Laughs] Yes, sir.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 123 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [03:51:24.25] AW: Secondly, we have this program where you’re supposed to visit
new professors to see if they’re competent or not. She would not let anybody in
her room. And they let her get away with that. See, they—you talk—they’re
mean to women. They’re scared to death of women.
PW: [Laughs] Yes.
AW: I’d like to live in a world where a man could [say], “I’m not gonna tell you what’s
the matter with me. I just want a medical leave.”
[03:51:53.12] PW: [Laughs] Did this—did this increase in women on the faculty start
in kind of the [19]70s? Was that when that . . .
AW: Yeah.
PW: . . . really . . .?
AW: Well, the—my—no, the first—our first effort was—God, we were so hopeful—
1960. Now, this was before anything. Betty Friedan was still in college. [Edi-
tor’s Note: Betty Friedan was born in 1921 and graduated from college in the
1940s.] I mean, the Feminist Movement was, like, a weekend old, you know?
And we—we—somebody had heard about this woman. I for—I don’t remember
many of the details, including her name. But she had been a student at Minnesota
and graduated, like, 1941, okay—or in the [19]40s. She’d been editor of the Law
Review and real strong academic—Dean Prosser—or Prosser was the—her dean.
He wrote a letter for her. But she’d gone off and—when she graduated she didn’t
practice. She’d married a guy who was a big-shot at General Motors, so she came
out of a very affluent background, and she was his wife. And I guess she had—I
know she had at least one child ’cause she—she brought her boy with her. Now
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 124 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ twenty years go by and her husband dies, so she’s looking around to do some-
thing, and she expressed an interest in going into teaching. And we thought, “Oh,
my God, we got a chance.” So we brought her down here for summer, and what I
remember best about her is she blew into town in a Mercedes [Benz] convertible.
Now, believe me, in 1960 you could count all the Mercedes convertibles in Ar-
kansas on one hand or fewer, okay? So right away she made a big impression on
me. And she didn’t like teaching. We wanted to hire her, and apparently she
had—she had all the mentality and so on—academic credentials, but she didn’t
like teaching. So she blew out of town in her Mercedes. She had golf clubs with
her.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: Wouldn’t that have been great? Nineteen—in 1960, you understand, we had one
woman in law school.
[03:54:02.21] SL: Let’s talk about early women in law school.
AW: Well, I can’t remember too many. Now, there was—there was this one that I—I
am embarrassed ’cause I never know her name. I never knew her name. And—
and all I know is I’d say to people is she—I never had her—“Is she, like, second
year? Third year?” They didn’t know. It was all very mysterious to me, but
since it—I didn’t have—our paths never crossed, really. I never talked to her or
anything. My interest was also very minor. I remember a woman came to law
school named Esther White, and I had first met—met Esther—she was a waitress
of the [Firgin’s?] cafeteria in the old Mountain Inn Hotel—sweet young girl from
Michigan, came down here—seventeen years old, and she wanted to go to the
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 125 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ university. And I think some guys downtown who liked her paid her way
through. She worked and all, but she got help. And so she shows up in law
school. And by then she had a boyfriend and he—a lawyer and he eventually
married her. He was married and then divorced and then he married her. But Es-
ther White became a lawyer, and she practiced many years downtown. I don’t—
I—I haven’t heard much about her in a long time, so I don’t know if she’s living
or not. But I can’t remember too many others. Now, this was the 1960s. I’m
sure they were around. If I had a class list I could probably see them. But there
were so few that just weren’t aware. I went—when I went to Emory in 1965, I
could—I had 100 students in contracts, and the percentage was easy to figure,
therefore, and I had twenty-one women. So there was twenty-one percent of the
day class. Now, I had a night class and there were seventy students and two were
women, so that kinda threw things off. I wish I could—I—I wish I had checked
on you for this because do you know [Terri Kirkpatrick?]? She’s . . .
PW: Yes.
[03:56:12.20] AW: . . . married to Ray [Guzman?]—has been for many, many years.
When [Terri?] came to law school—and I want to say it was about 1969 or
1970—it is my recollection there were only three women in her class. I—on the
other hand, part of me can’t believe that—it—it—that—that number. But I know
there had to be more than that, but I just—my—my memory is so—so bad. But
there were just token numbers. And then finally in the 1970s it grew up to—it
would hit twenty percent. Then it—it edged up year after year, and it finally
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 126 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ peaked at about thirty to thirty-three percent of the entering class for years and
years. And—and now, of course, that’s changed, but it’s since I retired. One of
the things we found is at—at Little Rock law school, the percentage of women
was always much higher. In fact, I taught there in the early 1980s a couple of
years, and my recollection is it was—one year it was exactly fifty percent—same
number in the entering class. And—and—and the other year it was, like, fifty-one
percent women and forty-nine men. So—so I would think about why that was
so—why were stuck at, like, thirty.
PW: Uh-huh.
[03:57:45.22] AW: And I concluded that most of our women came out of the—the un-
dergraduate school directly—not all of ‘em, of course. But down in Little Rock
you had more women—you had a heavy pattern of women who married after they
got their degrees—often married husbands who after, let’s say, ten, fifteen, twenty
years had developed some affluence. Their children, if any, were able to take care
of themselves, and now they would come back to school. And they might be thir-
ty, thirty-five, forty. They were older. Now, we started getting some of them.
We got a woman—a local woman named Phyllis Hall Johnson, who I think was
twenty-five, and she’d been married several years before she came to law school.
Now, that’s kinda young. That’s not—but it’s a difference, you know? It’s not
fresh out of school. She’d worked for the Methodist church, I think she’d told
me, for several years. And then there was another woman from Rogers, who was
twenty-seven and had two children and came back and finished her [undergradu-
ate] degree and then came to law school. And those are people I got to know as
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 127 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ friends. I’m sure there were others like them, you know? And that’s what—
that’s a big thing about the women’s difference back then is so many of them had
done something before law school, even if it was relatively conventional, like get-
ting married, having a baby or two, getting it up to grade school level, and then
come back to their own lives, so to speak—the older women in those days.
‘Course, there were always some undergraduates. There was Steve Clark’s wife,
Kay Fairchild. Her daddy was associate dean of College—College of Arts and
Sciences. She was in school in the late 1960s. And there was a woman—very
distinguished professor over in the business school named Harold Dulan had a
daughter who was my law student—married a—married a local kid named Gard-
ner. But—but these are, like—these are small numbers, aren’t they . . .
PW: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . you know? I can’t give you the numbers. [04:00:12.23] PW: How did—
how did the presence of women in your class—or did it? Did the presence of
women in your classes change your teaching style at all?
AW: Yeah, it ruined me. Well, one of ‘em—I’ll even name her, ’cause I’d like her
guilt to be known—Georgia—I forget her maiden name, but at the time she was
married to John Elrod, a Siloam Springs attorney, and she came to law school.
And she asked to see me after class one day and came to my office, and when she
did she chastised me severely—not with dirty words, but with—or vulgar words,
but just with derogatory words, indicating I was too mean and that my methods
were counter-productive, and that I was too mean to this young man, who was a
friend of hers from Siloam Springs, whose name, of all things, was John Brown,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 128 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ and I think had a connection with the school over there. [Reference to John
Brown University] And she chewed me out is the only way to sum it. And she
was older. She was, like, twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and I’ve only hit one
woman in my life, and that was in third grade—[Corinna Ritter?], when she hit
me with a snowball in the head—put a rock in it, and I hit her—after catching her.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:01:49.20] AW: That’s it. I—and so I listened to her and I mulled it over and I
thought, “Well, you know, it’s possible she’s right.” And that created that doubt
in my mind that led to my ruination over a period of time. That’s the way I look
at it. I was—women don’t like you to holler at ‘em. I don’t know that men like
it, but they don’t—it—it doesn’t occur to ’em they have any options.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:02:15.22] AW: Women tell you. And she wasn’t complaining about herself, inter-
estingly enough. She was complaining on behalf of a friend—a male. Isn’t that
interesting? He wouldn’t come in and protect himself. Yeah, it—I would say
women—I had a—I had a double standard of—whatever you want to call it, and
I—I could not bring myself to say the same cruel things—the sarcastic things to
women that I could to men. So whatever [ ]. It’s a weakness, I guess. I used
to tell people I thought of my mother, and the truth is I did.
PW: [Laughs] What about . . .?
TM: I need to change tapes.
AW: What?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 129 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [04:03:07.01] SL: I met a—a—a stately older woman that went to law school up here
in Little Rock at a restaurant one morning, and I’ve never heard such foul lan-
guage . . .
PW: [Laughs]
SL: . . . come out of her mouth. I mean, you talk about a firebrand of . . .
AW: Wonder what her name was.
SL: Well, white hair, stately—she knew—came right up to Barbara and David
[Pryor]—knew them. They knew her. And she went to law school here, and she
went at a time when they had to go across the street to go to the bathroom. Now,
I don’t—there wasn’t even a women’s . . .
AW: No. No. No, there’s always . . .
PW: I should probably ask you about the facilities . . .
[Tape Stopped]
SL: Yeah.
[04:03:52.10] AW: The—when Waterman Hall was built, there was a one-stooler built
for women on the—in the lobby. And that—for years—for close to twenty years
that was the only bathroom in the building for women—was this one-stooler in
the lobby. And now that they—did you ever know a woman named Pam Walker?
She married a guy named Scott Stafford at [ ].
SL: I—I—Scott Stafford [ ].
AW: Scott Stafford was—I don’t know if he’s still around, but he—for a long time he
was associate dean.
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 130 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: A real good guy. Graduate of Harvard.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: He’s from, like, Eureka Springs or that area.
SL: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
[04:04:29.18] AW: Berryville or some them. But he went to Harvard. Real bright
guy. We tried to hire him up here, but he—Pam Walker was a student here, and
she was the first really aggressive feminist we’d ever had, and she scared the hell
out of everybody.
SL: [Laughs]
[04:04:46.24] AW: And—and—and—and this is what she did on opening day of
school one year, over this one—one—one [rule?] is . . .
SL: Well, maybe we ought to wait . . .
PW: Can we—yeah, can we get this on tape?
SL: . . . and save this for . . .
PW: ’Cause I want this.
SL: We’ll get this so you won’t have to tell it twice. It’s always better the first time.
JE: We’re rolling.
SL: Are we—are we close?
TM: We’re rolling.
SL: Okay.
TM: But do you want to face P.J. so we can get a . . .?
SL: He’s thinking. He’s thinking.
AW: Oh, oh! I’m sorry. [Laughter]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 131 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ JE: Were you scared there for a second? [Laughter]
AW: I was thinking . . .
PW: Thought I’d ticked you off for a minute.
[04:05:18.27] AW: I was thinking about Pam, and I was thinking about a lot of other
stuff in there, but it’s—it’s not so much law school stuff as it is undergraduate
women. You know, the way they used to be treated. Oh!
SL: FireStore?
AW: The old in loco parentis days—you know, when—it took me a while to figure out
when I—when I came here, and there—the kitty corner to the law school—
originally, those were—all that concrete were tennis courts. And I’d look out-
side—it’d be July, August, and these young co-eds are coming down past the law
school going over to play tennis. They got their rackets and everything, and
they’re all wearing raincoats, and “What the hell they doing?” And then some-
body told me—they said, “Well, they have a rule that women can’t walk across
campus in—in shorts.” So they had their tennis clothes on. They had to wear a
raincoat in July and August on a hot summer day—no rain in sight, because no—
they—no telling what somebody might do, especially law students, if they saw
half-naked women parading by, going to play tennis.
PW: [Laugh]
[04:06:39.27] AW: That was a rule. And then I got put on a committee. I’m—God, I
had a lot of fun on that committee—trying to relax the rules that controlled wom-
en. You know, they always had to sign in—hours—they had curfew times and all
that, and guys had none. Women were closely regulated. And then it was—guys
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 132 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ could have women in their room. Women couldn’t have guys in their room. It
was—great time debating all that, ’cause a lot of people thought those rules were
essential to a healthy nation.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: And if you changed ‘em, it was gonna—God knows where it would all end.
There might be some guy in a woman’s room.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:07:18.07] AW: Great days. Then Pam Walker showed up. But never mind [
]. I—I grew very fond of her. She scared the hell out of everybody, though. She
was a real smart-ass feminist, and the first one that hit law school—about 1968 or
so. Last I heard she was in Nashville [Tennessee] and was a lawyer for all the
railroads in—or all the railroad unions or something in the world. Real good law-
yer. Smart. Mean. Lady MacBeth.
[04:07:57.17] PW: What was she like in school?
AW: Well, she was a—she was a good student and I never heard any complaint about
her from any professor as a student. It was her—it was what she would do out-
side of class in terms of getting women treated better that upset various apple
carts, as I’m gonna tell you in a minute—dramatically. I mean, she believed in
what I would call—what did—what did they used to say about [the Gulf War air
attacks on] Bagdad [Iraq], “Shock and awe.”
PW: [Laughs]
[04:08:36.27] AW: Well, she was a “shock and awe-er.” [Laughter] And her husband
was the nicest, quietest graduate Harvard ever saw. Soft-spoken, really nice, and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 133 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ she’s a firebrand. [ ]. As far as I know they got along real well. I think it
helped that she moved to Nashville and I think he stayed in Little Rock, but I
don’t know. But that would help. At one time she was working—I know she was
working out of Little Rock, and she—and she—I saw her. I ran into her and she
told me she was representing, I think, all the labor unions for railroads. You
know, they’re very powerful. They don’t fool around, those guys. ‘Course, they
don’t have as many trains as they used to, but . . .
[Pause from [04:09:28.01] to [04:09:51.09]
PW: Was there any particular incident that you remember her—anything you remem-
ber her doing that would kind of . . .?
AW: I’m gonna tell ya.
PW: Oh.
[04:09:59.15] AW: First day at school she made an impression. You don’t understand.
A lot of guys were not ready for feminism—like, the vast majority—they didn’t
know what—they didn’t know how to deal with it. Their mommies hadn’t trained
’em to—[laughs] to deal with wild and crazy women, that’s all. Women were,
you know, sugar and spice and everything nice. They—just—it was—as far as
they [were concerned] it was like entering the Twilight Zone. They never—they
didn’t know this world existed. “What do you mean, you’re as good as I am?”
was kind of the—the world was turned upside down.
SL: To—yeah, we’re rolling.
AW: Are you?
TM: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 134 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [04:10:53.26] AW: Okay. Well, I was—it occurred to me that I should really not
speak about the number of women in law school during the 1960s—especially
late 1960s, because every time I think about some of ‘em, another woman pops
into mind, and many of ’em memorable—no—none more so than a woman
named Pamela Walker, who, as I think of her, certainly the first outspoken, self-
described feminist—an active feminist—ever to hit the law school. And we were
talking about the number of restrooms available to women when the building was
built—was inadequate. One, for—remember, there were always secretaries, even
if there weren’t any law students. But once the law students started coming in
great numbers, the building didn’t change until 1975, when the first addition was
built. So you had 1954 to [1975]—you had twenty-one years of growth of num-
ber of women there, and you still had one stool in the lobby bathroom. Well, by
then it was common knowledge that the women were suffering. I think that led to
the story that they had to go across the street. Well, they did if there were multi-
ple numbers wanting to use the facility and—and—and had an urgent reason for
wanting to use it. They better find some other place be—because of the shortage
in the building, which is what Pam Walker did on her first day of school the
year—the semester she enrolled. When she found out that the facilities were in-
adequate, she went right next door to the men’s room and sat herself down be-
tween several males in the men’s room and did whatever she went in there to do .
. .
PW: Wow.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 135 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [04:12:55.24] AW: . . . and got the attention of the men as she exited and—and chatted
cheerily with them—wanted to visit. And it was a time when—you know, you
have to take my word for this—men were not ready for that. And she shocked the
community with such behavior. But that’s how she made her introduction to law
school, and she was talked about with varying degrees of emotion and interest
thereafter. Pamela Walker. I did not know her at that time, obviously, and I
didn’t have her her first year in class. But the more I got to know her over the
years, the more fond I became of her, as she was just somebody who wasn’t gon-
na put up with any silliness or mistreatment of females. Just because it had al-
ways been done didn’t mean it was acceptable. She later became a—as I under-
stand it—a very highly regarded railroad lawyer and married a man named Scott
Stafford, who spent many years at the law school in Little Rock. I’ve lost contact
with her, but that—that—I think that was a memorable moment in the beginning
of women coming to law school. I don’t know if they have an adequate number
now considering the number of women in the building, but I—I can point out that
Coach Frank Broyles is inordinately proud of the fact that when he had the so-
called [Bud] Walton Arena for basketball built, that the—that he exceeded the
recommended number of women’s toilets and built four times as many as the rec-
ommended number, and he’s quite proud of that . . .
PW: Wow.
AW: . . . fact. So Pamela may have started something . . .
PW: [Laughs]
AW: . . . that had that ultimate impact.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 136 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [04:15:07.02] PW: Now, I’m curious about Doc Leflar. What was his—what—what
was going on with him at this time? What was his position or reaction to . . .?
AW: I think he was above all those concerns. You gotta—his mind was—he was so
active in—in professional things around the country and NYU. I don’t think he
fooled with these mundane matters—at least that—that’s my instinctive reaction.
He was—he was in a different environment than we were, and it could’ve hap-
pened when he was not around. But I think—I would think that—I think—my
guess is that he would’ve accepted that as a —he would see that there was some
merit in her activity and her actions, because if—there had been complaints—
legitimate complaints for years. One year a student was taking—a woman student
was taking a final exam and—and went in there and sat on the stool all during the
final exam. Well, not only was that kind of iffy under the honor code—you
know, you’re supposed to stay in the classroom, but no other woman could get in,
so to speak. And that caused a hullaballoo.
PW: I bet. [Laughs]
AW: I thought I was real clever whenever I said it created a stink. [Laughter] Never
mind.
PW: Droll. [Laughs]
AW: Yes, but there you are.
[04:16:39.22] PW: Well, now, along with—with women in the law school, what about
minorities?
AW: Well, that—as I said, that—that’s very interesting. We did have two black guys
come in, I’d say, about 1958 or 1959, and one graduated and went to Tulsa and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 137 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ went to work, I think, for American Airlines, and I’ve lost track of him. And the
other I’m not sure ever graduated, to be honest. But he had a history degree, and I
heard that when he left school—and I—I just can’t say whether he graduated or
not. I’ve never thought to look it up. I—I heard that he became a history teacher
at one of the historically black colleges in Louisiana, where I think maybe one of
his parents had also worked. He—his name was also Don Smith, and to show you
how—I’ll call ’em sensitivity or political correctness has changed. We had two
Don Smiths at school at that time, and so there was always a question, “Well,
which one are you talking about?” And so in our cleverness, we would say, “Don
Smith W,” standing for white, and “Don Smith N,” standing for Negro. I’m not
sure we could get away with that anymore, but that was in our—trying to make
life simpler. Now, Don Smith N—I don’t know how he did this, because it’s my
opinion that checkers is not a challenging game. Once—if you have enough skill
to reach a certain level, there is no such thing as going higher than that. And it
doesn’t—you don’t have to be real good to reach that certain level, ’cause I
reached it. But Don Smith [N] could beat us in checkers, and there were—there
was a checker club then consisting of Winston Bryant, longtime lieutenant gover-
nor—made a major mistake when John—when Jim Guy Tucker ran for governor,
Winston decided, “Oh, I don’t want to be lieutenant governor anymore,” and
that’s how Mike Huckabee was born, if anybody remembers that succession.
My—a man named K. R. Smith from Yell County, Arkansas—just heard from
him recently—and there was a third guy whose name escapes me. He never—he
never became a lawyer. He went to Memphis and became a CPA [certified public
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 138 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ accountant]. And he was the worst checker player probably in the history of the
world. I think we—he and I played against each other maybe 1,000 or 2,000
times. He has yet to win a game. If K. R. Smith—well, we did—K. R. Smith,
Winston Bryant and I—if we’d play 3,000 games, we’d each win 1,000. It was so
close it—Don Smith N could beat us blindfolded, playing with one hand, so to
speak. And he would do it in a way that was so aggravating. First of all, he’d
say—when you’d start he’d say, “I’m gonna beat you,” and then he would add
“Ducks,” ’cause he called everybody “Ducks.” “I’m gonna beat ya, Ducks.”
Well, that aggravates you, you know? Gets your competitive juices flowing. And
so you’d think very long and hard before you made your move. And he’d say,
“Go ahead and move there,” he said, “Ducks.” He said, “Now I know I’m gonna
beat ya.” And whatever you did, you’d take two minutes to make your move—
he’d take two seconds. That was aggravating. He—no thought. And he beat you
every time. So one year—one semester he posted final grades for the chess play-
ers. Of course, he got an A, and Bryant and K. R. got C’s and I got an F. And I
challenged him on that, and he said, “Excessive absences.” [Laughter] So that
was—so, I mean, the point is that it’s just these—there were—there were some
black guys and you could—and back when the school was small, you could have
a nice, personal relationship with ’em and all that. But it—it changed as the
school grew and as emotions grew about various things. And—and the fact that it
was difficult—as the standards rose, you know, and the LSAT and all that was
harder for blacks to get in under the conventional measures, and we developed
kind of Affirmative Action plans and so on, and the attitude then—we never fully
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 139 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ understood it, but at that time the—the work ethic was—was not good, and—and
the flunk-out rate was just outrageous. I mean, we’d bring in eleven students in
the fall and ten would flunk out in the first semester—all F’s or all F’s and a D—
things like that. And it was very—except for the guys who didn’t come in under
Affirmative Action, and I’ve mentioned earlier—Les Hollingsworth, Richard
Mays—I know there were others. I can’t remember their names. But those two
guys—oh, Daryl Brown, whose son graduated just a few years ago. He was the
third. And the—so it was very puzzling. It was very puzzling. So we started an
early-entry program. I had taught at one in—at Oklahoma where the board of
trustees had ordered the dean, who was Bob Wright—our Bob Wright—had or-
dered him to start a program for the summer, and he didn’t know what to do, so
he called me and—and I forget why, but anyway, he asked would I come over and
help set it up. And the idea was—and they—it worked very well over there be-
cause they got a lot of racial minorities, which is—their number one, of course, is
native Americans and, in fact, blacks are third. Latinos are there also.
PW: Uh-huh.
[04:23:22.04] AW: So we had, like, twenty-one students in the class, and nineteen of
’em were minorities, and then one was the sister of one of the professors, and I
guess some other motive applied there, and one was an athlete, who I said quali-
fied because of a lack of educational opportunities [laughter] or something. But
the—we had nineteen legitimate. So when we came—when we tried to start it in
the summer, we could only attract, like—really, two or three black kids to come
up here and we didn’t—I don’t know—we didn’t have a—an identifiable number
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 140 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ of Native Americans or Latinos in this state. And you say, “Well, why so few
black students?” and the answer was they—they couldn’t afford to come up here
for summer. If they were coming up here in the fall, they wanted to work all
summer and get some money, you know?
PW: Uh-huh.
[04:24:13.21] AW: We hadn’t thought of something practical like [ ]. So it ended
up very—actually, what it ended up with was a program to help white kids at the
lower end of the LSAT score come in and get a head start. So we tried that for a
while. It didn’t work. And to be honest with you, I don’t think we had very many
blacks, but now as I’ve kind of paid more attention over there, since I’ve contin-
ued to teach the seminar each semester, I notice that the percentage seems to be
much higher.
PW: Uh-huh.
[04:24:47.09] AW: And I also read that it is. But how that happened, I don’t know. It
happened after my time, so to speak. And I’m delighted. I’ve got some black
students in class right now that are just a joy and a delight. And I hope I’m for-
given if I say, as I was talking to Dean Nance recently, and I said, “I’ve concluded
that if there’s such a thing as a reincarnation, I want to come back as a black
woman.” [Laughter] But I thought she would understand. They seem to have a
lot of spirit.
[04:25:28.03] PW: [Laughs] Uh-huh. Did you notice when—when the level of mi-
norities began to increase, was there much tension between the races within the
law school?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 141 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: I never noticed any. I’m not saying there wasn’t. You have to remember, I’ve—
I’ve never—I’ve always been kind of removed.
PW: Uh-huh.
[04:25:45.27] AW: In my early years I did—I’ve told you that I have these vivid
memories, but after—after that first group left and I got married and had—had a
couple of babies and all that, I—I quickly withdrew from involvement with stu-
dents, and—and—and—and never underestimate age difference. By the time I
looked around, I was forty years old, and it’s different. So I don’t—I—I didn’t
really hang out with students much after the first half a dozen years here, and—
and so I missed a lot of that scuttlebutt. I—I never liked beer. I never liked hang-
ing around with students and go drinking beer at George’s [Majestic Lounge on
Dickson Street], and—and I never did. I’m not—what else—what else to say.
They used to have—they used to have badminton parties and things at Dick Rich-
ards’—he’s retired now—Professor Richards, and they’d have the Clintons and
Atkinson and other young faculty people there, and I never went. I’m a lot older
than they are, really. Go ahead.
[04:27:03.21] PW: [Laughs] Well, I was gonna ask you specifically about—and I was
told that the—David Pryor was one of your students.
AW: Oh, yes, I—I—that’s very vivid. David is—is very vivid to me, and—and there’s
a good reason for that. First of all, during the early years here—my early years
here, Faubus was at his almost Huey Long-type power. Of the 100 members of
the House of Representatives, he owned eighty-eight. I mean, they would—they
would walk off a cliff for him—and did. I mean, they passed some legislation
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 142 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ that, you know, was so outrageous that—that, looking back, it’s now kinda funny.
Not then, of course. There were—but as I remember there were twelve—they
called ’em Young Turks—in the Legislature, who actually had the nerve to vote
against and argue against some of what I’ll call Faubus’s follies. And, of course,
it took a lot of political courage to do that, and David was one of ‘em—one of the
better-known ones. It was a—Bill Enfield was the guy we were thinking of very
early.
SL: Uh-huh, huh-huh. Bill.
[00:34:00.15] AW: Bill Enfield was the guy that taught the black student when he
first—and his law partner, Hardy [Crocksitt?] or something like that—I never
knew him. He was a Young Turk. So the point is David had—had a reputation—
had a public reputation. And, of course—I—I should’ve mentioned this earlier.
The—the—the guys that I’ve made friends with and I’ve talked about so warmly
were all Kappa Sigs. [Reference to the men’s fraternity, Kappa Sigma Alpha]
And the Kappa Sigs basically ran the campus—or said they did, anyway. And
David was one, I’m pretty sure, and so was Bob Wright and—and they did have a
powerful fraternity and knew how to use their power. So they were far and away
the most prominent fraternity on campus in those days. And I used to get a lot of
talk from these guys because they were talking about one of their own—Pryor,
you know—about what a great guy he was. Now, it’s my understanding, and I—I
could be a little off on this, but it’s my understanding that David owned and oper-
ated a—a weekly newspaper down in Camden, which is where he’s from, and—
well, this comes along later. I—I’ll come back to that [if you’re interested].
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 143 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Absolutely.
[04:29:49.01] AW: But when he came up here he had this newspaper that I think was
the source of his income. He was married to a Fayetteville woman, Barbara Luns-
ford—a prominent local family. She had a bunch of brothers. And so they used
to visit Fayetteville a lot—more than you would normally expect because of her
being from here. And eventually they—somebody said, “Oh, he’s coming to
law—he’s decided to come to law school.” And—and he did. Now, I’m not sure,
now, how long he stayed in the Legislature. I’m not sure whether he was still in
there or not. I think he might’ve been at the beginning. I’m not sure he stayed.
That part of his career I’m unfamiliar with. But he was my student. He—I think
he was still active in politics in the—in the Legislature, because he seemed dis-
tracted. I think he missed classes more than you would like, but you knew it was
in a good cause. I mean, he wasn’t out playing golf. And, of course, all of us that
I knew and certainly—and myself, certainly, were sympathetic to his political po-
sitions and what he was trying to do at those dark days. We’d lean over back-
wards to be accommodating. And so he—he worked his way through school with
what might be called two other careers—newspaperman and legislator. He and
I—I don’t know how this happened, really, but he and I got to be friends away
from law school. He was older. I was—not that I was all that young anymore,
but it wasn’t like going out with a fraternity kid. And we found out we both had a
passion for boxing. And one of the things about big-time boxing in those days
was that you didn’t have it on TV. They had invented pay-per-view, and the pay-
per-view is you had to go to a movie house. The closest one was Tulsa. And I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 144 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ remember David and I went over and saw the first great Cassius Clay, he was
known as, until the next day is when he changed his name to Muhammad Ali.
That was when Cassius beat Sonny Liston for the heavyweight championship of
the world [in 1964]. It was a great fight and is still talked about and still memora-
ble. And so he and I had driven over and went to the theater that was showing the
movie and drove back. I think we went another time [in 1971] when—when Mu-
hammad barely escaped with his life from—oh, God, I’m gettin’ old—Joe Fra-
zier. I also—we socialized a little bit. The only place in town to go in those days
for a decent meal and a drink was the Elks Club, and I’d long been a member of
that club. And I have one amusing memory. The Pryors and my wife and I had
gone—the four of us had gone to the movie to see a movie called Tom Jones,
which was a very popular English movie based on the novel of the same name,
and it was a very enjoyable movie. And afterwards I said, “Well, let’s go out to
the Elks’ and have a drink,” and nobody said no, so we went out there and—and I
didn’t—I was oblivious, and I—“Okay, what do you all want?” And I knew what
my wife wanted and I knew what my wife wanted, so I’m looking over at the
Pryors, and David’s kinda looking a little blank. And Barbara whispered in his
ear, and he said, “Gin and tonic,” and I—she later told me I had bought him his
first drink [laughs] which was the . . .
PW: Wow.
[04:33:56.20] AW: . . . gin and tonic. But he didn’t even know what to order. So he—
you think I’m innocent. That—I think that tops me by—since I had my first
whiskey at age six.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 145 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: [Laughs]
AW: For medicinal purposes.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:34:11.19] AW: Anyway, he and I have always retained a—what I consider a warm
friendship. Obviously, his career has taken him to far-off places and we haven’t
seen each other as frequently as I would’ve liked, but it’s always been very nice.
He—he’s always treated me with what I would consider great respect. I think he
still calls me Mr. Witte. I would like to think he does, though I may be wrong.
He did for a long time, anyway. He wanted me to go to work for Clinton and we
had a impassioned conversation outside a Razorback football game down in Little
Rock where Senator [Dale] Bumpers was running for reelection and he was hold-
ing a fund-raiser. And I guess it must’ve been 1992, because he kept saying,
“You know, all those people around Clinton are all so young,” [laughs] which it
turned out to be disastrous in some ways. But anyway, I—I—I’ve—he’s written
me some nice notes. I wrote him a nice one about Mark [Pryor] when Mark was a
law student and had done something that I thought was very—needed compli-
menting and he thanked me for that. I visited him in his office once when I was
in Washington [DC]. We haven’t had the kind of relationship of extended, de-
tailed, day in, day out. But when we see each other it’s always very warm, and—
and I—of course, I have nothing but respect for his service. When he campaigned
for governor the first time, I used to—this thought just came back to me—my
wife got real excited. And, actually, when she’d get—she wasn’t as educated as a
lot of people, you know, but once she’d get started she was—she was one that re-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 146 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ ally worked hard and—and knew how to relate to people. And she decided that
David should be governor, and she worked for him and he gave her—as a reward
he gave her a picture about this high, and I don’t know if anybody remembers, but
what became famous was he had what in those days was the—it was the first of
the polyester suits—100 percent polyester. You know, supposed to washable and
all that. He had one suit—navy blue polyester suit, and that’s what he’s wearing
in this big, giant picture. And she had it framed and hung it over our bed.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:36:47.14] AW: So let me just say that for quite a few years I went to sleep at night
under the picture of David in his polyester navy blue campaign suit.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:37:00.20] AW: Anyway, yes, I—I—I like him a lot. I don’t know what else to
say. Knew—I liked Barbara. She and I got along very well. I had more to do
with David, you know, in terms of calling him. I called him on some things over
the years that I’d been asked to call our senators. You know, I—when I was ac-
tive in the NCAA, I—they’d say, “Well, contact your senator,” so, you know,
what are you gonna do?
PW: [Laughs]
AW: So I’d call him and things like that. But I certainly have a warm relationship with
her, too.
[04:37:49.20] PW: How about Mark? Do you have—did you have him at all when he
was in law school?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 147 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yeah, I—I think I—my memory is I did. Yeah. And my memory is I liked him
and my memory is that he did something that I thought was needed—that David
needed to know about ’cause I was—that he would be proud of. And—and I
can’t remember what it was, but I remember David wrote me back and said that
he thanked me for sending him that news because he said Mark was the kind of
guy that would never tell him himself. That’s what I remember him saying. So—
and what it was, don’t ask me. I can’t remember. But the communications I re-
member. And David wrote me some nice notes about a couple of talks I gave and
things like that, like with Dick Atkinson’s eulogy and—and complimented me
about that. But I remember his days as a student when we were young—you
know, younger.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: And going over to Tulsa to see prize fights, which is a different side that most
people don’t know about.
[04:38:57.17] PW: I think you’ve about covered everything. Is there anything else
that you’d like to cover . . .
AW: Oh, golly, yeah.
PW: . . . from your law school days?
AW: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
[04:39:06.07] PW: I should ask you, Al, about your stint at Emory. You’ve men-
tioned it a couple of times . . .
AW: Well, I went there.
PW: . . . but we haven’t really explored that.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 148 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Don Smith, who was one of the four graduate students that went up to—they ar-
ranged for me to—to go there. I loved Emory, but my wife really wanted to come
back here and—the city was too big for her, I—was the way I put it. And our
boys were of an age where you had to worry about their upbringing. They were
gonna start—the oldest was gonna start kindergarten, and you realize that—you
know, you don’t really know what impact these things have on children, but you
have to—you have to mull it over, and I thought—what I would call the conven-
tional thing is it would be more stable for them if they started in a community and
stayed in that community growing up. And they would’ve been happy in Atlanta,
but they would’ve been happy here, too, so it’s one of those decisions where it
was just tough. It was kind of like flip a coin, ’cause I love that area. The univer-
sity’s a fine place and I got along well with the—my colleagues there. But, you
know, I like this place, too. I—I told you at the very beginning that I came here
with the idea of leaving, but I—I lost that after a few years. I just—it was the first
place I—after I left my real home—went in the service when I was a young man
and this was the first place I stayed where I thought, “You know, I’d like to stay.”
I could see myself being happy here, and that—that happened, and strong enough
that I’d—I had no desire to leave it, except I got a better job, and—and I was a lit-
tle sick of some of the in-fighting in school that I was telling you about—led to
some, you know, I would call it unpleasant environment. And I was flattered they
wanted me. It’s a prestigious-type school. And there is—one thing about private
schools—that if you work at the university level, you’re very sensitive to it, and
that is the Georgia Legislature could meet every day and they can’t effect Emory.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 149 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ PW: Uh-huh.
[04:41:20.08] AW: But you teach in a state school and—well, I’ll give you one exam-
ple. The first year I was here—the first legislative session there was a powerful
politician from Perry County named Paul [Van Dahlsen?], and he decided he was
mad at the university for some reason. I don’t know why. But the way he
showed his displeasure was—I think you have to read a bill three times before it
passes, and on—on—he introduced a bill on Saturday morning and had it reread
Saturday afternoon to move the law school. Now, this is, like, in April—March
or April—to move the law school to Little Rock by September first, okay? Read
twice on Saturday. The third reading was gonna be on Monday, and if it passed—
and it passed the first two readings, so if it passed on Monday we’re gonna move
the law school in six months to Little Rock. Well, the forces of good worked all
weekend and got the forces of evil defeated on Monday. But the point is it really
shakes ya up when you’re a new guy in town and they’re saying, you know—this
can happen on impulse with no—with no thought, no discussion, no place to—no
building, you know? You see what I mean?
PW: Yes, sir.
[04:42:52.28] AW: So that’s what a state law—that’s what a state legislature can do to
you. Not if you’re a private school. So there’s a lot of blessings in being at a pri-
vate school. That’s one of ‘em, anyway. So I—I had a lot of attachment to the
place, but I had a lot of attachments here, too. I didn’t mind coming home at all
and—and haven’t really regretted it. But the most you can ever say is, “Well,
suppose I had stayed? What would life have been like?” But that’s—there’s a
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 150 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ famous book that is based on the premise that [General Ulysses S.] Grant was so
drunk that he gave his sword to [General Robert E.] Lee at Attamatox—
whatever—what’s the word?
SL: Attomattox.
AW: Attomattox that . . .
SL: Appomattox.
AW: Appomattox [Virginia]—that Grant got so drunk that he—he could—got con-
fused and . . .
PW: [Laughs]
[04:43:49.07] AW: . . . gave his sword to Lee to—what would—what would the coun-
try have been like, you know, [laughter] if Grant had surrendered his sword to Lee
at Appomattox? And—oh, well, enough of that. I . . .
[04:43:59.19] PW: So you came back here in [19]62, [19]63?
AW: Yeah, and I prospered, really. I mean, I—I cannot tell you. I—I’m—I—I’m too
old to lie [laughter] or exaggerate. There’s no point in it anymore. I can’t tell you
how well I’ve been treated here. I have never—not once—not even privately to
myself—ever complained about the way I’ve been treated. I got a good job. It
was the only thing I was of any use for. They let me alone. I had—you know,
I—I’ve had a long career and I can’t think of one thing to complain about it as far
as the people in Arkansas, the community, the university. I did—I got—you
know, I got—I got jacked around a little bit from time to time by individuals
and—but I—my nature is that it—it—it’s too trivial to—to deal with. And—and
the people that did it were just kind of like negative people, you know?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 151 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ They’re—they’re unimportant people. But as far as overall, I—I had—you know,
it’s—it’s a hell of a good job to have.
[04:45:25.01] PW: No plans to stop any time soon, huh?
AW: Not until the students tell me to get—to—quit, which I think they’re getting close
to.
PW: [Laughs] I don’t think so.
AW: And—or, of course, the administrative—the faculty could always get rid of me,
but—but I would haunt them.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:45:44.21] AW: But, no, I’m serious. I—I just felt right at home in the beginning.
I made friends with a guy named Bass Trumbo, who’s a local lawyer and comes
from a prominent family—the four brothers, and I’ve been buddies—I still have
lunch every week with two of ‘em. And so I became very acclimated to the—
he—he introduced me to the country club set and I introduced myself to the Elks
Club set because when I was in the eleventh grade we had a Memorial Day pa-
rade, and we found out that any group could—any group could march. So we
thought—well, we were trying to think of “How do we get a day off from
school?” So we—we notified ’em that the eleventh grade boys from East High
School [laughs] were gonna march as a group. [Laughter] Now, how’s that for a
made-up group? Eleventh grade boys from East High School. We were a—so we
marched in the Memorial Day parade and, by coincidence, the guys marching
ahead of us were the Elks Club guys at Erie, PA. And where the place stopped
was right in front of their building. And one of the guys turned around and said
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 152 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ these immortal words to a bunch of sixteen-, seventeen-year-old kids: “Would any
of ya like a beer?” [Laughter] And it was a hot Memorial Day parade, and we all
said, “Yes, sir.”
PW: [Laughs]
[04:47:03.19] AW: And I’ve always had a soft spot for ’em ever since. So I am the
second-longest surviving member in the Elks Club as we speak, and it’s only be-
cause of the alphabet that Don Tyson’s ahead of me.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: Well, there ya are.
PW: That is awesome.
AW: And ’cause T beats W.
PW: [Laughs]
[04:47:22.22] AW: And—but—so anyway, I—I joined the Fayetteville Country Club.
I got to know people there. I joined the Elks Club—got to know people there. It
was the only two places in Fayetteville you could get a drink without slipping a
bottle under your shirt and sneaking it in or putting it under the table and hiding it
and all the stuff you had to go through then. And I’ve always been very—I’ve
always had a lot of friends among the town, like the so-called “town and gown”
community. I’ve always had most of my friends in the town group because of
Bass and his brothers. It’s a—and this is a pleasant place, you—I—what Arkan-
sas people don’t understand is—about themselves that I’ve observed—now, this
is my opinion, obviously, but it’s basis of observation over the years. First of all,
they have—too many of ’em have a giant inferiority complex, and I—the one
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 153 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ thing I’ve never suffered from is an inferiority complex, and I do not understand
why they have it. And I’ve gotten into nasty fights in other states when they’ve
said something bad about Arkansas, and I won’t put up with it. And I’ve had
some real foul-language debates with men and women over that—you know, I
mean, and—and I—by—by inferiority complex—Arkansas people spend too
much—too much time worrying about what other people think about ‘em. Do
you see what I mean?
PW: Oh, yes.
AW: Oh, they—I cannot—it infuriates me. To hell with them!
PW: [Laughs]
[04:48:57.27] AW: Who cares? Never mind. Then the—what’s the other flaws? No.
What they don’t understand is that basically they’re extremely tolerant, at least of
people like me, because I have never tried to ingratiate myself with anybody, you
know? I mean, whatever—whatever I am, I am, and they’ve tolerated me, which
I think is remarkable. You know, I—’cause I—I really—I don’t have a pleasant
personality, and—and that fact that I’ve been tolerated, really—I think is [re-
markable]. And I think the Arkansas people are much more tolerant than they get
credit for—that they give themselves credit for. Now, I don’t mean racial bigotry,
because we know that’s a terrible world of its own. But, I mean, just like—you
know, like people get after me and they—“What—how come—you Yankee?”
’cause I—I’d tease ’em a lot. “How come, you Yankee—you come down here. I
don’t care—if you like it so much up north, why don’t—” And I said, “But I
can’t get—if I’m up north I can’t get a job. I’m not smart enough. [Laughter] I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 154 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ had to come down here to get a job and I’m a leading intellectual in this area.”
[Laughter] So, you know, I mean—and they put up with it. That’s what I—I
can’t believe it.
SL: [Laughs]
[04:50:25.07] AW: So they are—that’s what I think. They are extraordinarily too sen-
sitive about what other people think in other states, and I know people—they
laugh and giggle and they—they—they make faces when they hear “Arkansas.”
And I give ’em the finger. And they are much more tolerant than—than—than I
think people up north are about the differences in human beings and how I can get
along with guys that are the first in the family to learn how to read and write.
[Laughter] You know what I mean? I used to play—well, I still play cards out at
the Elks Club. I was sitting there one time. There were eight guys in the game.
Dressed—everybody in this room is better-dressed than any of those seven guys
were, and they were all millionaires. I was the only person in the game that was
not a millionaire, and I cross my heart—Don Tyson was in it, Jim Blair was in it,
a guy named Jim Brooks was in it from the—the old—what was that Green Giant
spinach place in Springdale?
[04:51:43.06] SL: Steele Canning?
AW: Huh?
SL: Philip Steele?
AW: Yeah, Philip Steele—Steele Canning. A guy named—a guy named Carl Tune.
[Owner of Tune Concrete Company]
SL: Yeah.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 155 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Harvey Smith. Harvey Smith owned all the land where now they—we have the
Washington Regional [Medical Center] hospital and the—and the medical clinic.
PW: Wow.
[04:52:05.15] AW: How much land do you—how much money do you think he got for
that? The—these are the guys I’m playing with, and they’re—you can’t—it’s a
different world down here. It really is a different—you know, like—the things
that—things that fascinate me over the years—it’s like—I took my boys when
they were real young—I took ’em out to the Fayetteville Country Club. I guess
maybe we were having brunch, and we were having brunch and it was—we didn’t
have enough time for—we didn’t have enough time for—to play golf, so I let ’em
go out on the practice green and putz around on the practice green for a little
while. There was only one other guy on the green at that time, and that was Sena-
tor William Fulbright. And I kept thinking, “If I lived—I’m from Pennsylvania.
How long would it take me if I lived up there with these two boys, to have ’em on
a practice green with a—with a real-live United States Senator?” Only in Arkan-
sas does that sort of thing happen, you know, ’cause anywhere else—they
wouldn’t be in a putzy country club like Fayetteville, you know? They’d be in
some—well, it costs a half a million to join, you know?
PW: [Laughs]
[04:53:15.12] AW: It’s a different world here, and I’m just fascinated by it. The fact
that—the—the people—the lawyers are such a close-knit fraternity in Arkansas.
I—I haven’t been as active as I might’ve been. But the fact—you know, the fact
that we only had one law school made a lot of difference until the split, and now I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 156 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ don’t know what they make of it. But when I first came here and they only had
one law school, ninety-nine out of a hundred lawyers were all alums, you know?
That made a big difference in the attitude of the profession. I could go on and on.
I—I know Arkansas has its failings. I know they—you know, it’s—it’s not really
heaven. But, man, it was good to me.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: Not the—well, that’s enough of that. I referred to it as our isolated mountain par-
adise, and I mean it.
PW: That is true.
[04:54:22.23] AW: And when I was active in my NCAA days—days, I would go
around the country and meet people from all over, and it was very interesting.
Whenever they knew I was from this area, I cannot tell you—people from all over
the United States—athletic directors usually would say—same thing. “Oh, I was
at Fayetteville for a track meet ten years ago.” “I was at Fayetteville for a [bas-
ketball game].” You know, “What a great place. What a great—” All these un-
solicited testimonials. I can’t—you can’t—I cannot exaggerate how—how much
that happened from people who lived in places you would think, “Hey, this is
pretty nifty, too.” They really like it here—people do, who come here.
PW: Yes.
AW: Well, we know that. So what else?
[Tape Stopped]
[04:55:21.16] AW: . . . count or duke or—you aren’t gonna find it.
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 157 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: I mean, they just—they—they live in different worlds. They just—there it is.
And over here it’s so—it’s so unlike that. I mean, where you can—where you
have a community like Fayetteville, where you have some of the richest people in
the country floating around, and—and some that maybe still live in trailer parks
and nobody cares. You know, nobody cares is the—is I guess . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . where you’re from or what you—it’s just the—are you a good ol’ boy and,
you know, you got a pickup or [laughs] whatever.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: It’s—to me it’s—it’s the sort of thing I find important.
SL: Well, I mean, we can go ahead and get into the—into the . . .
AW: Yes.
SL: . . . into the community, I guess.
TM: Scott, [ ]
SL: Okay.
TM: And we’re good.
SL: And you’re good about signaling him when he needs to . . .
AW: Yeah, I’m . . .
[04:56:16.27] SL: You were talking about the Trumbos . . .
AW: Yes.
SL: . . . and how they kinda took you under their wing, you know, and . . .
AW: They did. Bass did, particularly.
SL: You know, I, of course, am aware of the Trumbo family.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 158 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Sure.
SL: And particularly Kay Barnhill that married one of the Trumbos.
AW: Yes.
SL: She kinda helped me in my career and got me back into the university, and started
. . .
AW: Oh, how nice. Yeah.
SL: That’s where I started my employment, so I’m crazy about Kay. I know Trum-
bos.
AW: Yeah.
[04:56:53.02] SL: But tell me—tell me how the Trumbos kinda brought you in.
AW: Well, what happened was just a simple little thing as Bass was married to Kay . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . and—and he had—he normally would’ve graduated in May of 1957, which
would mean I wouldn’t have met him right away, because I didn’t get here ‘til
three months after that. But there’d been some sort of crisis, and he was a mem-
ber of the National Guard, so he’d been called up for six months’ duty. And that
delayed his graduation a semester, so he was in his last—entering his last semes-
ter when I started at the law school. And after a couple of weeks—I’m not—I
can’t remember all the details—he—he asked me if I was going to the Law Re-
view banquet, which was at the prize restaurant in those days, in a place called
Heinie’s in—in Springdale—legendary steakhouse. And I said yeah, I was going,
and he said, well, could he ride with me because the family car was being used by
his wife to go to some PTA [Parents/Teachers Association] meeting or . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 159 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Uh-huh.
[04:58:00.00] AW: . . . something of that nature. So I said, “Sure.” And so he and I
went to the party and got to chatting, and one of the things we found out is we
both like to play cards, and he said that he and two of his brothers and a couple
other guys in the community liked to play poker at Bass’s house, like, on Saturday
afternoon—listen to a radio football game or something and—and would I like to
join ‘em. “Oh, sure.” So that’s how I kinda broke in—was socially into the
community, and I met his older brother, Don, who became—later became mayor
of Fayetteville and a legendary stockbroker and a legendary guy in his own way,
too—a guy that we still talk about a lot because of things he did and the kind of
person he was. A man named Joe Fred Starr, who then later became right-hand
man to Don Tyson when Tyson’s [Foods] exploded into their current status, and
Joe Fred was an interesting guy. And—and then Bass, who was shortly thereafter
starting his law practice and became quite well known as a lawyer. And then a
younger brother, who was still in college, named Hal. Arthur Howell is his name,
but that would—got shortened to Hal. And maybe the—the most exciting one of
the—the brothers—wild and crazy guy, as they say. And then, of course, there
was the younger brother, Ellis, who at that time was still in high school. So I
met—I met the family. I met the father, because he used to come over to the law
school every week and visit with a man named Judge Meriweather—Ed Meri-
weather—and Mr. [Don] Trumbo [Sr.] had become quite successful and highly
regarded for investment advice and decisions. He—after the war [World War II]
he had made a sizable fortune on the stock market, and so he used to come by and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 160 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ advise his friend, Judge Meriweather, who benefited from that, and I’m sure they
just gossiped a lot and talked over old times. Mr. Trumbo was a member of one
of the early graduating classes here—native of Muskogee, Oklahoma, but he
moved over here. And they—they became a prominent family socially because
Mrs. Trumbo, senior—Juanita, as she was known—was from a distinguished fam-
ily in Little Rock. Her father was known as Dr. Bass. He was head of the dental
school at Tulane [University], and according to family legend, was the man who
invented dental floss.
SL: [Laughs]
[05:00:50.01] AW: So they were a prominent Fayetteville family. They were lova-
ble—the parents were—you know, as older parents they were a little intimidating,
although Don, Sr., didn’t seem to be. And the brothers were just wild and crazy
Arkansas brothers—all of ’em very athletic, especially Don and Bass. They were
on state championship teams and highly regarded athletes. So they—they intro-
duced me into the community, and particularly to the country club and, you know,
I just got to become a part of that. The country club was not as—well, whatever
they accuse country club people of being sort of supercilious and having a superi-
ority—it wasn’t like that. It was just a place to go have golf and—and have a
drink after—after a round, and—and that’s what we did. All sorts of people be-
longed there. It wasn’t very expensive. I think it cost $250 to join, which in this
day and age is like a gift.
SL: [Laughs] A dinner.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 161 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:02:02.14] AW: Exactly. So that started it, and other people, like this Joe Fred
Starr—he became a friend, and I’ve always—I’ve always been kind of—I’ve al-
ways related to town people. I find ’em interesting. I think the fact that they’re
out there working hard for a living in—in the competitive world that I realize how
safe and secure the academic world is in comparison. I—I admire the people for,
you know, being out there in the challenging, sometimes cut-throat world, and do-
ing the best they can. And they’re—a lot of ’em tend to be what I would call in-
teresting people, and I met—I met some of ’em that I’m very fond of—a man
named Johnson, who started Johnson’s Air Conditioning and Plumbing, known as
Blondie Johnson . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:02:55.14] AW: . . . because he was, by the twisted logic of men, he was coal-black
hair and dark—dark, tanned skin. [Laughs] So why not call him Blondie?
SL: So—and his son Hot, I guess, is . . .
AW: Yeah, his son—his father, Hot, of legendary fame for reasons I’m not sure any-
body would want to go into.
SL: [Laughs]
[05:03:13.22] AW: But Hot—Hot was a legend—still is, I guess—quieted down some.
And one of those lucky guys that married a wonderful wife. So I think she’s kept
Hot alive [laughter] against the odds. And anyway, I met Doug Douglas, who
was the nephew of Senator Fulbright’s, and I met Jackye Fulbright, who was also
a niece. Now, her father was the other brother—Jack Fulbright, who by then had
moved to Little—to Pine Bluff, which is where Patty—and she—she married a
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 162 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ guy that was best man at my wedding, Willis B. Smith, I’ve mentioned in another
context. He became a lawyer. His father was a prominent oil and gas lawyer in
Texarkana—a very lovely couple. Found both of ’em just—just very pleasant
people. My big regret is living up here and being kind of lazy about travel. I—
I’ve lost contact with a lot of these friends from early days that—their—their
friendship and their memory I still treasure.
[05:04:27.10] SL: Did you get to meet Hal Douglas?
AW: Hal Douglas I met and I just thought the world of. I—I always thought of him in
a nice sense, not the movie sense, as Fayetteville’s godfather. If—you know, if—
if you and I were sitting around saying, “You know, what we need in Fayetteville
is—” and then just fill in the blank. “How do we go about doing that? Let’s go
talk to Hal,” you know, because Hal would know if it was feasible, if it was polit-
ically possible, if it was financially possible, and if he liked it, he knew how he
could go about getting it done for ya, and who you should talk to and who you
should sweet-talk, and—and he was like the—the godfather-type guy, and he was
always wanting to do something, you know, that would kinda upgrade the com-
munity in a little way. And he—I—and I always thought he had a successor after
he died, and that was John Lewis, of the Bank of Fayetteville and the Lewis—the
prominent Lewis family. And—and, of course, you know, I think of John and
the—the—the beauty of the square downtown—the flowers and shrubs and so on.
And—and the—the garden around the Walton Arts Center and all the things that
he brought into being as kind of a successor to Hal. I admired both of them.
Now, I played golf a lot with John when he was a young man, and we—he was—
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 163 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ we were partners a lot, so I got to know him well. I didn’t play with Hal. He had
his own older group.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:06:04.02] AW: Couple guys named McNair and other prominent people in
Fayetteville. But we—it was all a kind of a similar group and everybody knew
everybody. I’m very fond of him. I understand that—I don’t know about how far
you want to go back in history, but that he and the senator [Reference to Senator
William J. Fulbright] decided that—that had all these massive business interests
in Fayetteville.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:06:28.18] AW: You know, the Fulbright family as I—controlled the Bank of—or
the First National Bank and the Coca-Cola plant and the newspaper and the cable
television and the big [wood?] products plant and owned a lot of real estate and . .
.
SL: Schlitz [beer] distributorship.
[05:06:47.22] AW: And they—they didn’t know how to handle it, so they—Hal, who
was an FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] man when he started out of law—
graduated from our law school and joined the FBI, he agreed with the senator that
they needed somebody to run all these enterprises, and he—he—Senator wanted
to be a politician and stay in Washington, and so Hal bit the bullet and came home
and took over, and everything prospered while he was alive. I don’t know how
it’s done since then, and since the senator died, also, with the new generation.
But, yes, they were great. There was a man named Roy Wood, who I’m very
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 164 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ fond—Roy Wood’s father served on the Arkansas Supreme Court for forty-one
years. I think it’s the all-time record. And Roy was a great athlete here—like,
1909, when they [the University of Arkansas football team] were still the Arkan-
sas Cardinals.
SL: Cardinals.
[05:07:44.12] AW: And I think he played for the man [Arkansas coach Hugo Bezdek]
who renamed ’em Razorbacks. He was president of the student body. He became
a professional—he played professional baseball with the—I want to say the
Cleveland [Ohio] Indians, and he—he was on a—well, he was on one of the pre-
NFL [National Football League] pro football teams, so he was a great athlete and
a great guy. A man’s man to the nth degree, and he—he and I hit it off because
he had graduated from law school, but he never practiced. He married into the
family that owned the Campbell-Bell department store, and so he took over the
store. And anyway, that’s how he—that’s how he spent his working years at the
Campbell-Bell, running the men’s store. But he—he—he would meet—he would
see me at the country club and he’d move me over, and if somebody wanted to in-
terrupt he say, “No, no, no,” said, “We’re two lawyers. We’re gonna go off and
talk the way lawyers talk,” and he’d [laughter] run ’em off. And we’d have a
great conversation. And I just was so fond of him ’cause he knew all the history
of the place and little fascinating details. Like, he told me the way he came to the
university was he to hitch—hitchhike from—I think he was from, like, Lake Vil-
lage or Hamburg.
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 165 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:09:00.14] AW: As far away as you can get, and most of the way he—he rode on
hay wagons. And I thought, “Now, that’s the way to travel, isn’t it?” [Laughs]
In the olden days, but what else were you gonna do?
[05:09:12.18] SL: Well, now, back in those days the town was maybe 15,000, 20,000
people.
AW: Yeah, yeah. It was . . .
SL: The university . . .
AW: It was still manageable—Township Road was the city limit . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . if you can imagine. And when you got to the top of a—of the North Street hill
looking north with the [former Washington Regional Medical Center] hospital on
your left, there was hardly anything you could see. It was like open country, and
there was a—there as an old abandoned motel—stone-built motel that was later
torn town. I think it’s where one of the car dealers ended up and still is there,
down around Township. There was a pitch-and-putt place. There were a couple
of beer joints. I mean, it was virgin territory. I—I—I want to tell you that—how
different it was getting from Fayetteville to Rogers, is when I first came here I
found out driving down from Milwaukee that I needed new lenses—stronger
lenses—because I was squinting at all the signs—the highway signs. I couldn’t
read them until I got on top of ‘em. I said, “It’s time.” So the first thing I did
was, “Where’s a good eye doctor?” And they recommended a man in Rogers. I
think it was Dr. Picket. I used to get in my car in front of the law school and
twenty minutes later I’m driving into his drive—I’m parking my car in his drive.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 166 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Twenty minutes to get to Rogers. You try to get through Springdale in twenty
minutes. Twenty minutes, portal to portal—his office, ’cause there was nothing.
One stop light in Springdale. Lowell didn’t exist. What a difference. And it was
so beautiful. You know, it was all—now, where you have the shopping center
[reference to the Northwest Arkansas Mall] and all those—Lowe’s [Home Im-
provement Center] and car dealers around there. That was all virgin territory, and
it was a beautiful ride. I really—I really enjoyed just seeing it—just going up
there. It was so pretty. I don’t know if you remember, but where the Joyce
Street—all that stuff now is—was Steele family cow pasture.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:11:22.26] AW: It had, like, 1,000 acres and it had all those beautiful little cow
ponds for their cattle to drink and so on. And when the sun was the right time of
day and all that—pretty as any picture you ever saw. Now it’s kinda commercial,
let’s say. But I miss those . . .
[05:11:40.10] SL: Well, back in those days these families that you’ve been talking
about—they pretty much mapped and determined the—what was gonna happen
with Fayetteville.
AW: Oh, yes, yes. They had—they . . .
SL: I mean, it was basically the—the—wasn’t it pretty much the First National Bank
Board . . .
AW: Yep.
SL: . . . and McIlroy Bank Board?
[05:12:04.06] AW: That’s right. There were two banks and they . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 167 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . they were very powerful, and the members of the—their boards were power-
ful. And the Chamber—of course, the Chamber of Commerce overlap . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . was—was instrumental in determining, you know, what would happen in
Fayetteville. The city council was a little—perhaps more independent to—that’s
always because there’s always been guys from the university who might not have
the same interests. But I remember when Don Trumbo, Jr., was—in the 1960s.
He was a mayor. He was a member of the city council and also mayor for a time.
And a guy named Garland Melton—Garland Melton, who was an eye doctor.
SL: Doctor. Eye doctor. Uh-huh.
[05:12:51.08] Same—same age as Don. I think they went to high school together. He
was on the board. So they—it was a younger generation from the one we’re talk-
ing about, but it was kinda the next generation coming along, as well as some old-
er men whose names I can’t recall under pressure, who were part of that older
group that we’ve been talking about. But it’s kind of a mixture, and the younger
generation was there, and those guys who were probably—in the 1960s they were
probably pushing forty, I would say, at the time.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:13:24.26] AW: Around that age. And then the—the Lewis brothers—now, the two
Lewis brothers who were Herb and Tommy—they didn’t seem to be too [active].
Their dad was still living, Buck Lewis, and he was on—on the board. Well, he’d
been chairman—president and chairman of the board of the—of First National
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 168 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Bank, and—and was still very active. I don’t think they got active. They were
both busy with that Ford car agency. That’s my impression. I did . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:13:58.16] AW: If they were active, I missed it. John Lewis, their younger brother,
was still in college back in those days. But, of course, when he moved back here,
he became very active in the community. So there is a generational thing, but it’s
the same family, interestingly enough.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: From Buck down to his—one of his younger sons. And they—they did control—
I shouldn’t say control. That’s too strong a word. But they did have a great deal
of influence in the community.
[05:14:28.06] SL: Well, it was difficult to get anything done without . . .
AW: Yeah.
SL: . . . their blessing.
AW: Yeah, without their support. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you’d—you’d run—if you
went against what they wanted, you’d—you’d run into some road blocks.
[05:14:38.07] SL: Uh-huh. What about Curtis Shipley? Did you ever . . .?
AW: I know—I knew Curtis personally. I never—I never got involved with him on
any issues. I—I was involved myself, you know, for a while. I was on the
[Fayetteville] Planning Commission back in the early [19]70s, and then later on I
got on the committee—I forget the name of it, but it’s the one that gives you vari-
ances and sort of the petition committee, where “if you need a favor, maybe we’ll
give it to you.”
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 169 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Planning or . . .?
[05:15:07.28] AW: No, the planning is—is the formal one, where . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . if you want to get rezoned—your property rezoned or not.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: But this is—you come—I—I wish I could remember the name, ’cause it’s not a
hard one. But suppose you owned a bizarre-shaped lot.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And under the zoning you could only use it for something that’s of no value to
you.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: We might give you a break and give you a variance.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: So I did that for about half a dozen years back in [coughs]—excuse me.
SL: That’s all right.
AW: Early—early [19] 70s. So I got involved a little bit myself, but I think the aca-
demic—the academic and especially my involvement in the athletic world—I was
never as active as I wanted to be.
SL: What about . . .
AW: Oh, thanks.
[05:15:59.26] SL: Sure. What about the Rockwood Club?
AW: Well, I went there. Let me tell you about the clubs around here.
SL: Okay.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 170 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: First of all, now, you gotta remember the age thing. I turned thirty-four two
months after I got here. Now, thirty-four and twenty to twenty-two is—there’s a
big gap. I was World War II.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:16:30.26] AW: The next generation I felt close to was Korean [War] guys, but this
was post-Korea—kind of the pre-Vietnam [War].
SL: Uh-huh.
[Tae Stopped]
AW: The first thing I was told when I moved here—there were two places locally. One
place in west Siloam Springs I should never enter, because if I did I would be
killed.
SL: [Laughs]
[05:16:56.01] AW: Primarily because I wore horn-rimmed glasses. That was Club
West, Armstrong’s Tavern, and a—a club that was just barely into Oklahoma on
the south side of the highway, and I can’t remember its name, but it was a tavern.
And friends in the law school—males, obviously—said, “Don’t ever go in there
because any guy that looks like you and wears horn-rimmed glasses will not sur-
vive.”
SL: [Laughs]
AW: And I’ve followed that advice, because I’m basically kinda timid.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:17:30.24] AW: That is—now, the Rockwood Club—and then there was, what, the
Moon Club? Do you remember that?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 171 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: I do. Uh-huh.
AW: And there was another one that I can’t remember the name of under pressure.
Bubble Club. Bubble Club.
SL: Yes. Uh-huh.
[05:17:55.24] AW: Now, I’ve been in all of them, and I saw them make the beginnings
of The Band and—with Levon [Helm] and Ronnie Hawkins. Didn’t know what I
was seeing at the time ‘til I was told years later, “You know, these are big-time
guys.”
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:18:12.05] AW: And I never—I never felt at home on a personal [basis], mostly
because when I was seventeen, I drank too much beer and I threw up, and since
then I’ve never liked beer. So—and I couldn’t go out with a bunch of guys that
were gonna drink ten beers, which meant I’d have to drink ten [whiskeys]—
scotch and waters. [Laughter] And I couldn’t live like that. So I—I—I dodged a
lot of that activity.
SL: Uh-huh.
[01:26:54.13] AW: And, again, as I say, the age group—’cause, you know, when
you’re twenty-two you have zero sense and zero fear. But when you’re thirty-
four you’ve kinda gotten over a lot of that.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: So . . .
(Set adjustment from [05:18:58.25] to [05:19:08.21])
AW: So I remember the places with great pleasure, but I was not a—habitually.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 172 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Uh-huh.
AW: It wasn’t like I—every Monday I looked forward to Saturday night at the Rock-
wood. I do remember, however, Ronnie Hawkins. I remember the musicians be-
hind them, though I didn’t know their names then—since learned them, of course.
But Ronnie was a great performer. The—the students were just kinda wild and
crazy, I thought, so I—I stayed away. I went—but, see, now, like the friends that
I made didn’t go there very often, either. That is the—what I call the Korean War
. . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:19:59.21] AW: . . . group. ’Cause when you’re—when you’ve been in the service
before you’ve gone into your professional studies, your mindset’s different and
you’re much more serious-minded. You know, I was twenty-two when I started
college, and I’d been through a war and everything. And the—the fun or frivolity
of college life was meaningless to me. I just wanted to get it going and—so I had
a different mindset.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:20:27.04] AW: And they did, too, ’cause they were in their late twenties and want-
ing to get started. So we didn’t go to those clubs as much—or I didn’t, and—and
I don’t think they did, either. They—they were more, like, just go to George’s
and sit there and visit and have drinks. But the party-party, dance-dance crowd—
I think they were only temporary members of it.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Part-time members.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 173 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Uh-huh.
[05:20:58.24] AW: What I liked to do socially was, first of all, I would play cards at
the Elks Club, unless these group of students that I became friends with had
something that they wanted to do. Now, we’d play a lot of bridge, which is a—
not a violent game or one that you win or lose money.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:21:25.04] AW: We—we went bowling. Weekends they would have parties at
their house and, you—you know, you’d bring a bottle and leave it there for future
use, ’cause they were providing so much. And you got to meet each other and—
and it was just a lot of talk and a lot of issues. There was a lot of—I—I noticed—
to me, one of the most different things I noticed socially was the people I partied
or that I socialized with were people like Bass Trumbo. There was a man—with
Curtis Shipley. There was a man whose last name I forget—his first name was
Ken, and his wife was Rita, and Ken and Rita later divorced, and Rita remarried
Sid Davis, the—the local lawyer. And there was Jackye—not Jackye—Patty Ful-
bright Smith. Come on in.
SL: Come on in. Come on in. Let’s go ahead and stop.
TM: Okay.
[Tape Stopped]
[05:22:44.06] SL: Okay. We’ll get—we’ll go over that list and maybe say what you can
about . . .
AW: Well, could I just finish it right now?
SL: Oh, well—well, she’s kind of . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 174 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yeah, well I—but it’s only going to be a minute.
SL: Okay.
AW: I do—I just want to make one point and then we can go on to something else.
SL: Okay.
TM: We’re good.
AW: And that is what I noticed was that these parties—now, this was—this was what I
remember most vividly, is this—there was segregation by the sexes. The men
would always be in one corner, and this was the—this—depending on the time of
year, there were four topics. It would be “How’s recruiting going?” “How’s
spring training going?” “What’s it look like for next season?” And then there
was the season, okay? So depending on what time of year, you knew what the
men were talking about. The women are over here. Now, you gotta remember,
most of ’em had master’s degrees, and they’re talking about, “Well, what do you
think’s going on in Taiwan?” [Laughter] They’re discussing all the front-page
issues in the newspaper and the guys are out talking about the Razorbacks. And
I’m—I’m single at the time, so I—I might belong with the men, but I kind of
liked to hover [laughter] more over towards the women, so I knew what was go-
ing on in both groups. And I’ll swear to you, that was true, that the women talked
about the serious subjects and had a degree of intelligence so far above those
guys.
SL: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 175 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:24:10.04] AW: It was remarkable. And so—now, that’s my idea of an average
social event at somebody’s house and that kinda group. And, of course, you
know what’s her name—Shipley? What was her first name? Curtis’s wife?
SL: Ellen.
AW: Ellen [Compton] Shipley. I mean, she was right in that group, talking all about
“How do we save the world?”
SL: Yeah, and Kay.
AW: And Kay.
SL: Uh-huh.
[Tape Stopped]
[05:24:34.02] AW: I know it’s good. I’ve had some, too.
SL: Where we left off—you were talking about your typical social evening out.
AW: Yeah.
SL: Two groups.
AW: Men and women.
SL: Men and women. Men talked about four things. It was the . . .
AW: Recruit . . .
SL: Recruiting . . .
AW: Recruiting, spring practice . . .
SL: Spring practice.
AW: . . . getting reading for the season, and the season.
SL: And the season. The women talked about world affairs.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 176 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:25:02.29] AW: World affairs, government affairs, state affairs, city affairs. They
were all into what I would call policy issues. There was—there was some talk,
but not a whole lot. Not as much as I would’ve guessed, about recipes.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:25:19.28] AW: And I don’t think there were enough children to get into the ins
and outs of raising children. But they—they were the kind of women that
could’ve handled that, too. They—they were. They were an intellectual set. As I
say, I can think of three of ’em who had advanced degrees and had taught school,
and I didn’t know them all that well on a personal basis. I didn’t know any of ’em
very well on a personal basis, except Kay Trumbo. And she and I are still friends
today, whenever we see each other. But I know they were all exceptional women
by my standards, you know? And I used to—I meant it jokingly, but maybe with
a little bite in it that they were superior to their husbands in certain important
ways. [Laughter] Markedly superior.
[05:26:16.10] SL: Well, now, you come to Fayetteville and you—you kind—you
hook up with the Trumbos and you—you do these social gatherings. All the men
want to talk about are Razorbacks football. And how long was—how long had it
been—had you been in Fayetteville before you were given the assignment by
President Mullins to be the faculty rep on the athletic . . .?
[05:26:43.27] AW: What happened was that in 1969 George Cole . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . asked me if I could go to meetings and just observe. The faculty rep—
representative at that time was Dr. John Kane of the business school, and my ob-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 177 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ servation was that he was very good at whatever he was doing. I wasn’t entirely
sure. One of the interesting things—in those days the professors—the faculty ac-
tually ran the Southwest Conference. I mean, they made all the decisions. No
coach, no athletic director—director and no president made any decisions. The
presidents were totally uninvolved, and they all, I assume, trusted their reps the
way Mullins trusted me. And later on is what I’m—is what I’m trying—but Kane
was—was a great guy, and then he took a couple of off-campus assignments, so I
acted in his place. I was an acting rep, but I wasn’t—you know, I wasn’t the guy
at that time. And then suddenly he resigned and I got this letter from President
Mullins. And that was in June of 1973. So I’d already had four years’ experience
of going to meetings, but only as an observer. I—I was so shocked by his resig-
nation—totally unprepared—that I—I was concerned. I thought there might be
something bad going on that I wasn’t privy to. So I went over to his office and I
asked him. I said, “This is what Professor—President Mullins has asked me to
do. But, I mean, give me a break. Is there something I should know?” He said,
“No, no,” he said, “I—” he said, “The reason I quit is,” he said, “I found myself
spending all my summers in the registrar’s office looking at the academic records
of all the athletes to see if they were eligible for the fall.” I said, “You did what?”
He said, “I spent every day in the summer going over their transcripts, from high
school and from the ones already here, to see—to look at what grades they had
learned and whether they were still eligible.” And I thought to myself—and—and
you gotta remember, in those days buildings on campus were not air-conditioned.
So he’s in the basement of the administration building. I’m thinking, “I will never
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 178 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ do this.” So I went—I—I was relieved that this wasn’t any cheating scandal that
was being covered up. It was his dislike for this. I went to Coach Broyles, who I
knew, but not—only slightly, and I said, “Do you want me to have this job?” And
he said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well, then, you better hire somebody to review tran-
scripts, ’cause I will never do it.” And he did. Mrs. Norman DeBriyn—Carolyn
DeBriyn, wife of our legendary baseball coach, and a wonderful, wonderful per-
son—both of ’em are—two of the finest. So she was my first one, and she did all
that dirty work, ’cause I was too important to do it, I guess I thought.
[05:29:52.10] SL: [Laughs] Well, were you a big Razorback fan?
AW: No. I—I—I didn’t go to basketball games. I’ve never gone to basketball games,
except when we had two—two eras: one, when we had “The Triplets,” Sidney
Moncrief and Ron Brewer and the other guy [reference to Marvin Delph]; and—
and then later on when we had the great teams under Nolan Richardson that went
to the [NCAA] Final Four [tournament], starting out with Todd Day and that
group—Lee Meriberry [reference to Mayberry] and ending with [Corliss] Wil-
liamson and Scotty Thurman and that group. And that—that—’cause they were
so great. But since then, I have not been to a game. Let’s see, [19]95 and five—
at least thirteen years. I get two—I buy two tickets. I give ’em to my son. So
I’m not a—I mean, no, I don’t go to baseball games. I don’t—I don’t go to those
cross-country meets either.
SL: [Laughs]
[05:30:52.07] AW: And I go to football games partly because they treat me so well. I
sit up in the press box. I don’t have to worry about the weather. I don’t have to
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 179 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ worry about being expected to yell “Woo, pig sooie!” They have food and
drink—bathrooms that are readily available. Free programs. I mean, I’m like vis-
iting royalty, and they give me a good parking place. And what else are you gon-
na do on a Saturday afternoon in Fayetteville in the fall? So I go to the football
games. If you said, “Look, let’s—let’s learn how to play chess, just the two of us.
We’ll both—we’re both starting fresh. Let’s learn how to play chess. We’ll get a
book, Chess for Dummies, and—and off we’ll go—instead of going to the football
games.” I’d say, “Okay,” you know? That’s—am I a fan? Yes. Do I—? See,
when you get to know the coaches particularly, and it’s their life, you know how
short-lived they are if they lose. Then it’s important to them, so I want them to
win because it’s so important to them. It’s their life. But it’s not my life. I was
always aware that it was not my life. I—I didn’t earn any money. I never got any
money from doing this for the Athletic Department. I—all my—I was—because I
was a law professor, and that was where my commitments were.
[05:32:17.22] SL: So, let’s see now. When was it that Coach Broyles stepped down
and Lou Holtz took over [as head football coach]?
AW: That—I think that was—his last season was [19]76.
SL: So . . .
AW: I—I’m—I could always be off a year, but no more than a year.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And it—that was a very interesting period if you want me to elaborate on it.
SL: Sure.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 180 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:32:41.03] AW: By then he and I had developed such a close working relationship
that we were in each other’s pocket all the time. And he—he—he asked me to
come down and talk to him, and—and what surprised me is about halfway
through the season—in my memory it was the [19]76 season—it was either the
[19]75—it was a disappointing year. We—we were stumbling along somewhat,
like fifty-fifty, and did not go to a bowl game. And he said he had decided to re-
tire at the end of the season, and the first thing I thought was, “Well, he didn’t tell
me he was thinking about it.” He had already made that decision. So I don’t
know who he talked to about making it. Or maybe he just made it—it was his
time. “I don’t have to talk to anybody about it.” But what he wanted was how to
go about finding about his successor. He already knew who he wanted, but how
to get a procedure that you could get him, and that was Lou Holtz. And he had—
he had checked into Lou Holtz on his own because he had—he had never met
him. He didn’t know him, except he knew he was a successful coach, and he had
hired a man from Lou’s staff, named [Robert Edward] Bo Rein, who had come
here as an offensive coordinator and who set records as an offensive coordina-
tor—they’re still standing—and who died very young in a—one of those tragic
plane crashes [Jan. 10, 1980]. You may—I’ve—I can—I remember three of ’em
where something happens to the compression and they fly high and they—and
they lose consciousness because there’s no oxygen and . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 181 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:34:28.12] AW: He—he and his pilot were on a recruiting trip and they—they ulti-
mately landed and drowned in the—well, they were dead by that time—in the—in
the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda.
SL: Hmm.
[05:34:40.10] AW: But all that way go—you know? And a famous golfer, Payne
Stewart—that happened to him and his crew a few years after that. So that’s what
happened to Bo. Anyway, the point of that story is Frank had developed a great
respect for what Lou had taught Mr. Rein and so he though Lou was just the guy
for us. So he’d already made up his mind and how—Lou, meanwhile, had gone
on to the New York Jets and was coaching Joe Namath and those guys. But Lou
thought—but Frank thought he could talk about it because he knew he wasn’t
happy there. And so it was interesting. We—he—we got on the phone, and he
made me get on the phone, and my assignment was to tell Lou what a great city
Fayetteville was to raise kids, and Frank’s was to tell him what a great job it was.
The second—the part—my part was the truth, but his—Frank’s part was the lie.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: ’Cause it’s not a—it’s not a great job. But that’s how we brought Lou here. And
I don’t know what else to say, other than . . .
[05:35:46.11] SL: Well, you know, Coach always claims that he got the one job that
he always wanted, and it was . . .
AW: Yeah.
SL: He thought it was the best job in the country and . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 182 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:35:55.29] AW: Well, he—but see, he—now, you gotta understand. When he got
the job, two things existed. Three things existed, one of which still exists, kind of.
The first thing was there was no integration. It was just recruiting white—
Southern white boys who tended to do whatever their father figures told ’em to
do, you know? They were as they say “coachable,” and they wanted to get out of
the delta or wherever they were from, and this was an opportunity. Secondly,
there were no limits on how many you could recruit. They would bring in fifty a
year at a time when only thirty-three would play. So you have 200, 250 kids over
there on scholarship. It was a deflationary period. The cost of attendance was
trivial. It was $11 an hour [credit hour] when I came here. And that was—what’s
eleven times fifteen? [$165] Anyway, that was a—fifteen hours was under $200
to go to law school. So you had that—and there’s no professional sports in those
days. Even the Dallas Cowboys, as close as they are, were nothing. And so it
was a great job. Plus, which, we played in the Southwest Conference, where our
resources were better than most of the private schools. And then Frank was a
great coach and all that. So he did have a bird’s nest on the ground. Things got
tough, though, and he had his uneven periods, you know? Especially the one
where his last season. Even Daryl Royal—you know, Daryl Royal almost got
fired at Texas. He did get fired as athletic director. They said, “You can’t do that
anymore.” So they made him consultant. When he quit as coach, they fired him
as athletic director, too. So they were both—they were both having trouble ad-
justing to a new world of the mid-1970s and later. But I’m not knocking ‘em.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 183 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ I’m friends with both of ’em and I think the world of both of ‘em. But circum-
stances changed while Frank was here.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:38:17.29] AW: They’ve put limits on—now you can’t recruit unlimited numbers
of players. You know, the advantage there is you keep ’em out of Arkansas State
[University, Jonesboro] or [University of] Memphis or someplace—[University
of] Tulsa—so they can’t beat you. They’re sitting on your bench. And now you
can only recruit, what, twenty-some a year, and . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:38:36.22] AW: . . . and they’ve cut it basically in half. So anyway—plus, I think
the stress of coaching is just—is so intense. I’ve often marveled at how you
can—you can live and die by the decision made by eighteen-year-old males. Al-
most none of ’em have any sense, you know?
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:39:02.24] AW: How you could abide just surviving that. That—to me, that’s a
real challenge psychologically—emotionally—is to realize your future depends
on what some kid does who’s brain-dead.
SL: Well, one of the . . .
AW: Law professoring’s a lot easier.
[05:39:24.01] SL: [Laughter] Well, you were with Frank when he really kind of de-
signed the financial engine and—and the—the way that [the] Athletics [Depart-
ment] came to support itself.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 184 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Frank has not received credit for some of the things he’s done—some of the inno-
vations he’s done for the benefit of other people. First of all, he—all assistant
coaches should periodically worship at his altar, because he got the coaches in on
TIAA-CREF [Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association, College Retirement
Equities Fund]. Do you know how important that is? They now get—they now
get the advantages of that retirement fund. They didn’t before him. He got that
started for them. He was a great believer in paying them top dollar and not—and
not him. He forever was doing that. So he did things for assistant coaches. Sec-
ondly, he invented the [Razorback] Foundation, which is how they get all this
money that they can spend on whatever they want to spend without running it
through the regulations of the Legislature, because it’s private money. And he
started that. I went into his office one day and there were three athletic directors
here trying to learn how he did it, raising money. One was at the University of
Pittsburgh; another was from the University of Michigan, for goodness sakes; and
the third was from, I think, Minnesota. Three major state universities. Michigan,
you know, which has sold out 110,000 per game forever, and they’re down here
learning how to raise money from Broyles, through this foundation, which is basi-
cally—a lot of it is basically you auction off your seats. You auction off your
seats for the privilege of buying them. That’s what you—that’s what you’re—
that’s what you’re bidding for is the privilege of buying a ticket. “How much
would you—how much will you give me for the privilege of buying a ticket on
the fifty yard line?” And so they generate all this enormous revenue through that
procedure, which he invented. None of that is well-known or, you know, realized
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 185 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ by most people. He thought of it. And that’s how—that’s how this—this state,
without any taxpayer money ever being involved—he’s got those facilities down
there that are incredible. I’m not—I’m not—I want it made known that that’s not
my necessarily idea of how I would’ve had people spend their money, but in our
society you decide how you spend your money, and if that’s the way they want to
spend it, I’m not gonna sit around and criticize them. It may be that a dental
school would be better or a . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[05:42:17.21] AW: . . . veterinarian school or something we don’t have in this state.
But if people don’t want to build one, I’m not—I’m not gonna tell ‘em—I’m not
gonna sit on their shoulder and say, “Well, you ought to,” even though they ought
to. [Laughter] You know, I mean, there ya are. I don’t know if Bud Walton—
Bud Walton had to give $17 million for a basketball arena—$17 million for a vet-
erinarian school might’ve been a better investment, but that was his decision.
SL: Well . . .
AW: You see what I mean?
[05:42:57.06] SL: I do. There is—but those become—those facilities become great
financial engines that affect not only—not only provide the—the growth within
that, but it’s . . .
AW: You’re very true. But what—I’ll tell you, the only thing that—the only thing that
I can think of that they definitely do—if you think there’s a benefit to intercolle-
giate athletics at our level—people can debate that if they’re of a mind to. But if
you make that your assumption that there’s some significant value in having ath-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 186 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ letic programs at this high nationally competitive level, then the best thing those
engines develop is they provide the money for the so-called nonrevenue sports,
which at this campus are all women’s sports and all of the spring sports for men.
There are only two and now three sports that provide all the money to operate
men and women—all of it—and that’s football, men’s basketball, and now base-
ball’s coming into its own. The last—I haven’t looked lately. I think we’re over
$50 million. Schools like Florida, Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State—they’re all
over—well over $100-million-a-year enterprises. We—obviously, we lag behind
for obvious reasons. But all of that money comes from one way or—directly or
indirectly—from those—for those three sports.
[05:44:31.00] SL: Well, and it’s not just the athletic program. It’s the community
around the athletic program.
AW: Well, you mean the businesses that profit and all? Yeah, I—I—I’m not arguing
that. But what I was just saying is that you can trace the first part. You can trace
the fact that this—these coaches were hired or these players were—had their way
paid through school because of the money that was generated by the program.
You can trace it. See, that’s what I would call direct benefit.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:45:01.08] AW: The indirect benefits I’m sure are substantial. They’re just a little
harder to trace, and so on. Yeah, I’m—but that’s—you know, that’s what they
do. And, of course, they provide—I don’t—I don’t understand why human nature
since the recorded Greeks have been fascinated by high-level competitive athlet-
ics. They—you know, the—the Greek—the Greeks in the original Olympics—if
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 187 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ you won—if you won the 100-yard dash they gave you a pension for life, [laughs]
you know? That—that’s a long time ago, and they were figuring that much out.
The 100 meters or whatever they called it. I don’t know. But anyway, that’s
what we would call it—the 100-yard dash. You got a pension for life. And all
the stuff that’s happening—and, not necessarily Rome at all—and my favorite is
that race that’s in Sienna, Italy, where they—they have those horses that run
around each other and you kill each other and—or at least damage each other [
]. People get impassioned about that. Who knows? I don’t know why, but—
because I—I don’t have that much thrill in me. But you know that in Arkansas—
especially this part—when we beat a team like Oklahoma or Texas, there are a lot
of Arkies . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[05:46:27.28] AW: . . . that get a pleasure that you can’t explain—that you can’t sub-
ject to microscopes. But it exists—the pleasure. I get all—even I get—if we beat
Texas, man, it makes my year—at anything. It’s part of something in human na-
ture that’s some psychology that more—better—better brains than mine have to
deal with.
SL: [Laughs]
[05:46:56.12] AW: But it exists. It’s very real. Now, let me tell you a story. We had
a—remember I was talking earlier about this academic program in the 1970s,
where we tried to give students with poor academic credentials a break coming in-
to law school. And this woman deserved no break whatever. She came from a
very affluent family. She had graduated from Hendrix, for goodness sakes, and
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 188 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ she still had lousy LSAT scores coming to law school. So we let her into a spe-
cial program that was designed for blacks, who in all their academic history of the
schools they had to attend. She’d gone to the best school in Arkansas and—and
still couldn’t get in legit[imately]. So we let her in. Now she graduates. She’d
gotten—I think she got 100 hours of C, and she graduates. And soon as she grad-
uates, she called me and she said, “Professor Witte, my—my parents have done so
much for me. I want to do something nice for them.” Now, this is when we still
played in Barnhill Arena—9,000’s all it can seat. “So what I want to do is buy
them two—two season tickets to the Razorback basketball games.” And she said,
“I know you have to pay extra.” She said, “I’ll go up to $2,000 a ticket.” Four
big ones, just for the privilege of buying the tickets. She said, “So would you call
Wilson Matthews and ask?” I—I said, “Sure, I’ll do that.” So I called Wilson. I
explained the situation. He said, “Don’t even bother to take her name.” I said,
“What do you mean?” He said, “We got a line of people waiting to buy tickets.”
Said, “She won’t live long enough to get—[laughs] to get—to get access to that.”
I—I’m shocked. So I call her back and I say, “Gee, I’m sorry, but this is what he
said.” And she said, “Well, thank you for trying,” and she hung up. And at which
point I said, “Why didn’t she offer to give the law school some money? Why is
she giving the men’s basketball program $4,000? We were the ones that let her in
school. We were the ones that let her become a lawyer and it never crossed her
brain to give us $40, let alone $4,000.” And I say there’s some human nature in
there that I don’t get, but it’s very real. Anyway, enough of that.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 189 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [05:49:20.18] SL: Well, so you got—you—you became very close to Coach Broyles,
then.
AW: Yeah. Well, we worked—we worked together well. His—his personality—I—
I—oh, I’m stumbling on because I’m trying to grasp an extraordinarily complex
guy. Here are some of his, to me, important characteristics. One is he has the
most forgiving nature of anybody I have ever known. People have said and done
terrible things to him. He—he—he’s ready to forgive every one of ‘em. He’s not
only—he’s kinda like Clinton in the sense that he truly believes that no matter
how evil the other person is, if he just had a chance to talk to ’em they’d get
along. Okay, he’s really like that. Makes me madder than—’cause I’m not like
that. And I—I would get very upset with him because—I’d say, “Oh, you’re too
Christian. You’re too forgiving.” But that’s his nature. Do you remember that
guy that used to be the editor of the [Arkansas] Democrat—he had three names.
SL: John Robert Starr.
[05:50:37.24] AW: Yeah. And the things he said about Frank over the years. Frank
told me—he said, “If I—” he said, “Do you think I just should call him?” “He’s
like talking to the devil!” Okay. Now, that’s one characteristic. The other—
another is he will ask your advice and listen to you, and if he thinks you’re giving
him good advice, he’ll take your advice and he has no ego about it. And, fur-
thermore, if he doesn’t take your advice, he’ll explain to you very carefully why
he didn’t. And so he makes you feel very important, because when he calls you
and says, “What do you think about this?” and you tell him, if he thinks that what
you said makes sense, he says, “I’m gonna do it,” and he does it. So he makes
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 190 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ you feel important because he actually listens to you and acts on what you say in
some way or another, either by accepting or rejecting. And I remember one time I
was—oh, I’ll tell you when it was. It was the legendary time when he fired Jack
Crow after the first game—unprecedented in the history of football. We play Cit-
adel—we get beat—Crow’s fired. He called me Saturday night. He also called
[Fred] Vorsanger, who was chancellor at the time, ’cause he and I got together
and exchanged experiences, and we both felt the same way. He called and he
said, “I’m gonna fire Jack Crow.” “You can’t do that! It’s the first game. We’ll
never live it down. Yah, yah, yah, yah.” I’m ranting and raving. “You can’t do
that!” He very quietly said, “Let me tell you why I’m gonna do it.” He said, “We
have an obligation to the players. These—these players know that after we lost to
Citadel he’s gonna be fired. So the question is, do we fire him at the end of the
year and let them stumble along to a bad season under a coach they know is not
gonna be there anymore? Or do we hope to get rid of him and bring in somebody
else, and maybe they have a chance to do better?” And I thought, “Well, I—I
can’t refute that.” So do you see what I mean?
SL: Yeah.
[05:52:42.04] AW: He told me why he wasn’t—and turned out later he had the same
argument. [Chancellor Dan] Ferritor did the same thing. “You can’t do that!
You can’t fire him.” And—and he explained. So that was—that’s the way you
worked with him. It was a very—he was an ideal person to work with. He had no
ego about anything that was said. If you disagreed with him and said, “That’s
dumb. That’s stupid. That’s wrong,” he just wanted to know why you thought
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 191 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ that. He didn’t—he didn’t get his feelings hurt. It was—that’s why it was so
much fun working—that’s why I got sucked into working for him so much, was it
was fun working for him. He wanted to fire one of his coaches because the coach
had an affair, and there was a racial issue involved in it. I said, “You don’t fire
people anymore for that. You just don’t. What the hell’s it to you anyway, what
he’s up to with somebody else? That’s not your business. Let them alone.” And
it was easier to say because the woman involved had moved to Louisiana, so it
was all over. So why rake it up and, you know? And—and he listens to you, and
so he didn’t do anything about it. But you can imagine how it would hit the fan if
we find out . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . a coach is fired for a peccadillo that was consensual adults some time ago, you
know?
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:54:07.01] AW: Anyway—of course, they—standards have changed, too, since
then. But that’s the way it was like. I’m just giving you a highlight. But that’s
the way it was like every day working with him, was—treated you like an equal;
really cared about what you thought, relied on what you thought if he thought it
was worthwhile; explained why he didn’t if he didn’t rely on what you thought,
and never held a grudge. Now, on the other hand, he could drive you crazy, you
know? So it wasn’t like you were dealing with a second coming of the Lord. He
could drive ya up the wall, and he—he let his biases and his impulses overtake his
mouth from time to time, and you always—well, I’ll give you an example. I was
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 192 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ talking at—when we were having a bite before about sympathizing with these
presidents of historically black colleges and universities, and so I was getting a lot
of criticism in the press and from the faculty that was published in the press for
voting against academic standards. So Frank said—it’s quoted in Orville Henry’s
column as saying, “Well, they’re being unfair to Professor Witte because I told
him how to vote.”
SL: [Laughs]
[05:55:28.29] AW: Well, now, how did—how do you feel like you’re being made a
puppet, you know? And—and I called him and I was furious. I said, “Why’d you
say—? First of all, it’s not true.” I never cared what he thought about an issue.
I’m—why would I?
SL: [Laughs]
[05:55:46.04] AW: We had an understanding. Anything that did not deal with money
was mine. Anything that dealt with money was his, ’cause I had no concept of the
money part. But anything was—I didn’t care. So I said to him, “Why did do
this? You’ve just embarrassed me and made me like a fool.” He said, “Oh, I was
just trying to help,” you know?
SL: [Laughs]
AW: That’s what I mean. He could drive—and he did it without asking me—without
thinking. And, yeah, he could—he could drive ya up the wall.
[05:56:16.25] AW: Well, he also did that without malice. He was really . . .
AW: Oh, yeah, I know.
SL: He was—he was willing to take the heat.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 193 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Well, and that was one time when I showed some Christian charity, which is not
my normal position. But anyway, that—my favorite story is, you know, he was
very—very much against drinking, and some—but a lot of hit was posturing, you
know what I mean? He doesn’t—he didn’t drink personally. If you went to din-
ner with him and his wife, she liked sherry—you know, a little thing—and he
would her a sherry and him a sherry, and then surreptitiously she would sneak his
over in front of her and—and reverse it, you know?
SL: [Laughs]
[05:57:01.18] AW: And so she would have two and he would have zero, but he looked
like he was going along with the group. We’re having the Southwest Conference
meeting, so it was always a routine, and that is, “Should we accept advertising
from beer companies?” Well, of course, Budweiser was a big advertiser in—in
college sports, and most of the people—“Of course, we accept beer advertising,”
at the radio broadcasts and so on. So—but there were two schools. One was Bay-
lor, as you could imagine. The Baptists could not support beer advertising, and
the guy from TCU [Texas Christian University] was a Baptist, so TCU had no
standing, but he had a personal one. So the vote was always seven to two, and we
always voted in favor of it. But one year Frank didn’t realize that I’d always vot-
ed in favor of beer advertising, and he got up at the meeting and he spoke against
it. “I don’t believe we should do that,” and he went on his—on a rant. And, nev-
ertheless, when it was all over, the vote was seven to two. Then he comes home
and he gives an interview in the press, and he says, “Well, we voted against beer
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 194 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ drinking.” And some guys down at—see, at Baylor he’s—there’s a love/hate
thing. That’s where he started coaching.
SL: Uh-huh.
[05:58:20.09] AW: And they still think of him as one of their own, but they also—
there’s people that don’t like him because he left. And some guy called him and
said, “You’re a liar. Arkansas did not vote against beer drinking.” “What do you
mean, we voted—we did, too!” And they got in a big fight, and the guy proved it
to him. And he—he said, “Al, I thought we voted against it.” I said, “No,” I said,
“Frank, you spoke against it, but I’m the one that votes.” So that, I mean, is—you
know, and he—he didn’t fuss about it, you know, ’cause that’s the way it is. So
we had that kind of a relationship. But if you really wanted to—if—if I had it on
tape I’d play it for ya right now, is when somebody said we should sponsor wom-
en’s golf in the Southwest Conference, which we’d never sponsored any women’s
sports up ‘til that time. And Frank went onto a rant about women on the golf
course. “They’ve started to play on Wednesday afternoons.”
SL: [Laughs]
[05:59:16.28] AW: “Now they want to play on Saturday morning. And if we don’t
stop ‘em, they’re gonna want to play on Saturday afternoon.”
TM: We gotta change tapes.
AW: I.e., the world is gonna end.
SL: We gotta change tapes. [Laughter]
AW: The world is gonna end if we . . .
[Tape Stopped]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 195 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ TM: Broyles talked about women and golfing in his era.
[05:59:36.17] AW: I mean, who wants to go out in public and say . . .
SL: They used to.
AW: . . . “We’re not gonna let women on the golf course on [laughs] Saturday after-
noon.” [Laughs]
SL: Yes.
PW: I thought you were joking.
SL: No
AW: And it was just—it was so funny to listen to him. He was—’cause he was sincere,
and everybody just thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
SL: Well, thanks for—’cause I’ll turn that in.
JE: Okay. We’re rolling.
SL: We’re rolling. So did we get all of that?
TM: We got just maybe to the last rant.
JE: Right to the last . . .
TM: The last—with the last . . .
JE: “Saturday afternoon.” That’s about how far we got. [Laughs]
[06:00:07.02] SL: Okay, well, that’s good. You know, one guy that’s in this Frank
Broyles mix that I think played a pivotal role was—especially early, and as long
as he was alive, was Orville Henry.
AW: Oh, yeah. Orville—Orville and Frank—I’ve talked to Frank about that relation-
ship. I knew Orville well enough, because when he remarried it was a local
woman who was very interested in—in the arts and literature, and she brought
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 196 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ him out of the sporting world where he had been secluded all his life up ‘til then.
And she was a very interesting woman, and I didn’t talk too much to him. I did
talk to Frank, but got—I got both sides to some degree, and that is when Frank
came here, he was thirty-one, I think, and he and his wife had four children, but
she was pregnant with the girl twins that were born not long after that. And Or-
ville was thirty-one and he was the father of four children, and so they—they’re
both, you know, the same age. They’re both in the same business, so to speak—
the sports business. Orville was a “boy wonder.” He took over as sports editor
when he was, like, seventeen years old. So they—they became social friends.
Now, I don’t know how much that affected—Frank told me one time—he said he
was quite aware that Orville’s business was the press and to publish news, and if
he found out something, he’d put it in the paper. And all this stuff about he
wouldn’t do—he—Frank told him what to put in and what—and what not to put
in. Well, that—Frank—I mean—convinced me that that was not the case. He—
he—he did say that if he had a story, he would call Orville and say, “Would
you—would you be interested in—?” or “I’d like you to publish this.”
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And he’d give him a story. Now, of course, it was—but it was up to Orville
whether to do it and how to do it and all the rest.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:02:29.18] AW: Now in other words, they were both professionals and they both
had their own way of doing business, especially in terms of communications with
the press. So he was aware that they were close, but at the same time they had
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 197 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ that one little distinction. So they became very close through most of their ca-
reers, and I don’t—but I understand that Orville’s feelings were terribly hurt, and
I can understand it, when—when the new press box was built and they named it
after Jack Stephens, and—and it should’ve been—it—later they named the press
box—the rows—the Orville Henry Press Row or something. But out in front was
Jackson T. Stephens or something.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: I think it soured him a lot on—on their relationship. And, of course, his last years
were sad because he—he was suffering from so many ailments and died too
young. But I thought he was a great guy and great reporter, and—and wrote
beautifully by any standard.
[06:03:36.20] SL: Well, all the sports fans turned to him to get the stuff, and—but I—
I heard that when Frank first got here and he traveled the state to all the high
school programs, that Orville traveled with him.
AW: Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised. Yeah. Well, that would be a good guy to be intro-
duced by, because everybody knew Orville.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:03:54.29] AW: Now, Orville hurt Frank. I mean, he did him—he said things that
he had no business saying, like when they hired Ken Hatfield and—and didn’t
hire Jimmy Johnson. That was not the 100-percent decision that Orville said it
was, that Jimmy never had a chance. Frank was not all that—I mean, he wasn’t
100 percent sold on—on Kenny Hatfield. What happened was that there were
some members of the Board of Trustees that were influenced by Jimmy’s reputa-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 198 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ tion as being a playboy, and they didn’t like him and they told Frank they were
gonna vote against him if he nominated him. So Frank had—and so Jimmy
doesn’t—Jimmy doesn’t know it or not—well, I’ve told him, but I don’t know if
he believes me, that—that his not being hired was not simply because Frank
thought Kenny was superior. It was because he was gonna have to fight some
powerful influences on the Board. I’ve—I sat in on the conference call, and there
were only six members of the Board, and the first two said, “If you recommend
Jimmy Johnson we’re gonna vote against you.” Well, they only needed one more
and it was all over, you know, and that was—the other four didn’t say anything.
Well, it turned out he recommended Hatfield anyway, so that became moot. But
went—Orville went around the state making speeches, saying that Jimmy Johnson
was never even considered. It was 100 percent, and it—it really wasn’t. And
Jimmy has had a hate for Frank ever since . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:05:21.27] AW: . . . ’cause he believes Orville. Orville knows everything—you
know, that idea that . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . Orville could read Frank’s mind or was told everything. And then he—so he
wasn’t always his friend, so to speak—at least in that instance. He also was a
great supporter of [Arkansas Razorbacks head basketball coach] Nolan Richard-
son, even though Nolan was suing the university and so on, and that was part of
the rift. And I think he had the wrong end of the stick on that case, from my per-
spective. But then, no question they had a very close relationship for many years.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 199 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Orville’s life was saddened by the fact that his first wife had serious mental prob-
lems.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Spent a lot of time in sanitariums, and—and he didn’t abandon her or anything.
He—though he had—everybody said he had plenty of cause to if he wanted to.
And he raised the four boys. As far as I know, they’ve all done well. So I liked
Orville a lot. I don’t know who else—Frank was very close to Lewis Ramsey.
Do you know Lewis . . .
SL: Well, I—I never . . .
AW: . . . or—or who he was?
SL: I—I’ve met him. I never really knew him.
[06:06:36.02] AW: He was chairman of the Board of Trustees . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . and he was Arkansas’s representative to the Cotton Bowl Committee, and one
of the few guys that’s been Arkansas lawyer of the year and Arkansas banker of
the year, and—and a great guy and a big supporter of Frank. Frank used to rely a
lot on his judgment.
SL: A lot of folks did.
[06:07:00.28] AW: Yeah. But he was very close. He was close to a local guy named
Bill Dick McNair. I love that name.
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 200 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: William Richard—Bill Dick. Very close to him, and Bill—Bill Dick and Louis
Ramsey had played in the same backfield together for the Razorbacks back in the
early [19]40s, so it was kind of a small group.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: What else, Scott—I . . .?
[06:07:28.24] SL: Well, you—you were with Frank his last day, weren’t you?
AW: You mean this—just now?
SL: When they—then they—yeah, when he stepped down.
AW: No, I wasn’t.
SL: Oh, you weren’t?
[06:07:43.26] AW: I—and, you know, I—I’ve got a lot of pain that’s in me, as I’m
sure it’s been demonstrated by now. And one of the things was I was angry at
Frank for—for going along with the resignation. I can’t say too much because I
don’t know one critical thing, though I think I know it, and that is, what power
does the Board of Trustees have over the Razorback Foundation? And what I un-
derstand is the Board told Frank if he didn’t resign effective January one, he
would not be permitted to work for A) the university, or B) the Razorback Foun-
dation. And he was through. He could go be a greeter at Wal-Mart or some simi-
lar position, as far as they were concerned. On the other hand, if he—if he was
nice and resigned effective January one, he could work for the Foundation. And
he went along with that and it angered me, because he had a contract to this—
coming up July one. So—but basically what they were doing—they were breach-
ing the contract for the last six months and using threats, if I was told accurately.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 201 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ That’s always an iffy thing. Maybe—maybe something forgot to tell ya some-
thing important. But that’s—I just—that angered me after, you know, his years of
service here to be treated like that—especially by the two newest members of the
Board, who have a lot of “jerk-ism” in ‘em. Actually, it was the newest—latest
three who led the fight to get rid of him. And so I—I was mad at him for accept-
ing that, ’cause I thought he could’ve beat him if he—if he defied ‘em. And so
I—I stayed away—the hell away, ’cause I was sulking over him going along with
it and not fighting. And I’ve only been to see him once since he retired, and that
was about February or something, and he’s sitting down there. I don’t know.
What’d you think of his situation? Did he show you his schedule?
SL: He said he had plenty of time.
[06:10:01.16] AW: He showed me his schedule. This was February, so it was March,
April, May. “Well, March twenty-nine to thirty-one—take Lee Scott and two
other Wal-Mart executives to Augusta for a weekend of golf.” Okay? “April
fifth—go to North Little Rock—speak to the Razorback Club. April tenth—go to
Augusta. Watch the Masters [Golf Tournament] for a week.” Now, you know,
you say that ain’t a bad deal. That’s not a good deal for a guy of his ability and
drive and energy. It’s a good deal for me [laughter], but—and a lot of other guys,
but not for him. But that’s—that’s what he’s reduced to. You know, it’s like they
did to Daryl Royal at Texas. They said, “You’re—you’re—you’re consultant to
the president on—on athletic matters, but we just as soon you didn’t have an of-
fice on campus. We’ll send you the mail that comes in for you, and then you can
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 202 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ come over whenever we need to talk to you.” That was his assignment. In other
words, “Stay the hell away.”
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: “And you’ll get a nice salary.” And that’s what they’re doing with Frank, who’s
sitting down there. They fired—they fired two of his—two of his people have
been fired. They don’t know the fate of a third yet, but he’s talking about retire-
ment, and the fourth and most important one down there—Bill Gray is retiring,
I’m told, but it—that’s not unexpected because he has a bad heart.
SL: Yeah.
[06:11:57.12] AW: So it’s a different world down there. It’s all gone. And I was
thinking just recently—but, man, you know, there is something to it. Once you’re
out of power, you’re—you’re forgotten. You know, I was thinking—like, I was
watching TV the other night and I saw a little picture of [Rudolph] Giuliani—
Guiliani or whatever his name.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: But, you know, when’s the last time you saw his name in print?
SL: Right.
[06:12:16.19] AW: Once you’re—once you’re off the front page, you’re nothing. And
I just kind of—I mean, I—the point is, I’ve watched Frank operate and I never—I
didn’t see any slacking of energy or ability, but maybe I’m wrong. He’s the one
who brought in [University of Arkansas men’s head basketball coach John]
Pelphrey. What else?
[06:12:49.16] SL: So he’s the one that brought in Pelphrey, you think?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 203 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Well, he was . . .
SL: They . . .
AW: He was instrumental in hiring him. Yeah.
SL: Okay, ’cause I—I’m not—I wasn’t really ever aware that was clear that he was in
that mix.
AW: Well, he—he didn’t do it by himself. They did—they had—there were other peo-
ple, but it was under his watch, so to speak.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: He didn’t try to veto it or anything. He didn’t stand in the way of hiring Pelphrey,
let’s put it that way, so it wasn’t like he was hurting the . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . hurting people . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . is what I really meant.
[06:13:21.00] SL: So what do you think he’d like to be doing?
AW: Athletic director. He wanted to stay ‘til he was ninety. He told me that—ninety!
SL: [Laughs]
AW: I know it’s farcical, but then what the hell am I still doing over there, contaminat-
ing the law school?
SL: [Laughs] Well . . .
[06:13:40.25] AW: The only reason—the only difference is nobody cares, ’cause it—
you know, no—it doesn’t have public attention. That’s the only difference be-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 204 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ tween us. We’re both still trying to contaminate the place that we’d been at for . .
.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . far too long. [Laughs]
SL: Well, seems like we probably just need to give you guys something to do.
AW: Well, I’m not too—there’s an ego thing involved, you know?
SL: Yeah.
AW: I mean, you—you don’t want to be—now, you don’t want to be beholden to
somebody else. You don’t want somebody to say this: “I’m gonna give you a
good deal.” You—you kinda want—I—I’ll decide.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:14:16.19] AW: You know, if I want to quit this, I’ll decide. I don’t want to be told
to quit it. So there’s an ego thing that you have to contend with.
SL: Well, it just seems like, you know . . .
AW: Plus, he just spent $25,000 at Bowman’s for men’s clothes. Did you know that?
SL: No.
AW: $25K. Now, what do you think he could get out of Bowman’s for $25K? He told
me this. He—he tells you anything. You go in there—you ask him, “You much
you make last year?”
SL: [Laughs]
AW: He’ll tell ya.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: He’ll tell ya anything.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 205 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: [Laughs]
[06:14:49.20] AW: He has no—has no censor in his—up here. And I—I know what
he makes now. He’s real proud of it. I would be, too. But he goes—he—“Guess
what? I was just down to Bowman’s. Guess what, Witte? I spent $25,000. You
know, I got two suits, three sport coats,” and God [almighty], my eyes are . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: And he’s in his eighties and he’s buying—you know, enough of that, but you see
what I mean.
SL: Yeah, I do. I mean . . .
AW: He’s still a kid—still a kid.
SL: Yeah, still a kid. I—I know . . .
AW: “I got some new clothes. I got some new clothes.” [Laughs]
SL: Well, I know they had to make bigger closets for him . . .
AW: Yeah.
SL: . . . you know, and the house remodel.
AW: Oh.
[06:15:30.10] SL: And I know that he had suits that were twenty, thirty years old that
he could still wear . . .
AW: Yeah.
SL: . . . and was still wearing.
AW: But he’s lighter than he played football at . . .
SL: Yeah, uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 206 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: . . . Georgia Tech. He’s down five pounds or something, and he tells me all that
and . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[06:15:46.08] AW: . . . and when he—I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember
in the [19]70s, when somebody wrote this book, Dress for Success.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And it was all what guys should wear, and Frank’s went—was—was the biggest
convert to Dress for Success. He was driving everybody crazy down there, ’cause
they were all wearing polyester; red, white and blue pants, and—and he—and so
he—he’s wearing the—the typical thing is the navy blue blazer and a beautiful
pair of khaki pants. So Lon Farrell has to Dress for Success—his assistant. And
Lon—you had this love/hate relationship with Frank. When he got mad at him he
used to say to me—he’d say, “You know what his problem is? He was a damn
quarterback.” [Laughter] “And they’re spoiled. Quarterbacks are spoiled.”
[Laughs] “He’s a damn quarterback.” And anyway, so [laughs] I’m in—so I’m
in Lon’s office one day at the height of Dress for Success, and he’s got the navy
blue blazer and he’s got the button-down shirt and the striped tie and the chino
pants. And he gets up and he says, “You know what that dumb SOB does?” Oh,
I shouldn’t do that. He says, “He spends—” he says, “His pants—$40 a pair!”
He says, “These are Dickies—$8 a pair!” [Laughter] Just as good. [Laughter]
They’re funny people. Never mind.
[06:17:18.16] SL: Well, so, at some point in time you became president of the
NCAA?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 207 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Well, I—let me tell ya. In—in—first, [ ] conference [ ]. The conference
presidency rotated, so all you had to do was be standing there at the time you—
they rotated into you. So I was president of the Southwest Conference back
around [19]78, [19]79 in there—through rotation. But I did do one thing that
gave me great perverted pleasure.
SL: [Laughs]
[06:17:48.20] AW: All the times we had meetings in Texas, we had to go where the
current president want us to go. So I had to wander all over that place. One time
I even had it go to—to a resort in New Mexico for the thing. I sent ’em to the
Red Apple Inn. Now, these guys from Texas—you know, they don’t have a hill
in the state, right? And they’re trying to drive from Adams Field in Little Rock
up to Red Apple Inn, and they don’t know about two-lane highways, rental cars,
hills, [laughter] you know? They got up here. They’re “Oooh!” Madder than
hell at me, but I—[mouth squeak] . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[06:18:24.02] AW: I took great pride in tormenting—’cause of all of the places I had
to go to to humor them. Anyway, so I was—I was big-shot of the Southwest Con-
ference, which was essentially meaningless, except we got sued in a big lawsuit,
and the commissioner said to me—he said, “You know, Al,” he said, “the only
privilege the president has is he can pick an attorney to defend the conference.”
So we had a graduate of our law school who was practicing in Dallas—a great
guy named Bob Middleton. I called Bob. “Hey, how would you like to be the—”
and he milked ’em for all it was worth, and so I was proud of diverting a lot of
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 208 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ money to a transplanted Arkie. But that’s—that’s about it for the conference. I
didn’t like the conference because Texas was such a bully and they bullied us all
the time. Frank never understood it ’cause he loved the—what’s his name?—
Daryl Royal so much. But Texas cheated. They were no good. They were cor-
rupt, and he never would accept any of my conclusions based on my observations.
So I never liked the conference. I—I liked the guy at Baylor and that was about
it. The Texas [A&M] Aggies are so irrational it—it’s beyond belief. And there
were schools that were jealous of it. The president of SMU [Southern Methodist
University] could tell—he—he—he once commented—he—he didn’t like—he
didn’t like the thought of having to walk across the campus of a state university.
How do you like that attitude? Wouldn’t you like to take a baseball bat to him?
SL: [Laughs]
[06:20:08.19] AW: He would be embarrassed if he had to walk across the campus of a
state university. The biggest cheater in the history of the NCAA. They were
on—they were—if fourteen years went by, they were on probably thirteen years
and—and we—all we—we all know is they just didn’t get caught that fourteenth
year. And they—and they make statements like that.
SL: Hmm.
[06:20:32.19] AW: So—but I loved the NCAA people that you met. Man, they
were—I made some great friendships through that. So what happened there was
in the 1970s I got appointed to what was called the Committee on Committees for
the NCAA, and their job was simply to make committee appointments. And I en-
joyed that because I knew a lot of people at a lot of the ones from the conference,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 209 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ and would try to get them. I got our—Dean Webber, our trainer, on the Olympic
Committee, and things like that, which, you know—I also got him on the Safe-
guards Committee, which is a big one, you know, for dealing with equipment and
other ways to make athletics safer.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:21:12.05] AW: And so I took great pleasure in helping place—and I was very ac-
tive in it. I got—I got one of my professors on the Infractions Committee—a guy
named Frank Remington, who was one of my favorite teachers, and stuff like that.
But I—I—I developed a lot of friendships and connections, so—which helped me
later. And then it was kind of ironic. A position opened in what was called the
NCAA Council. Doesn’t exist anymore, but then it was made up of faculty reps
and athletic directors and an occasional president—very few of them—usually
from Division III schools that didn’t have a lot of money to send people off on
adventures. So it was—[laughs] Affirmative Action reared its head. It was be-
tween us and the Southeast Conference. Southwest with Southeast. And the
commissioner said to me—he said, “Al, if the Southeast Conference appoints a
woman to the council, then you’ll be our rep. But if they appoint a man, then
we’re gonna have to appoint a woman.” That was the—the deal. Well, they ap-
pointed—Southeast appointed—appointed a woman named Joan Cronin, who’s
the women’s athletic director at Tennessee, and she and I later became very close
friends, and she’s in my opinion the—the most successful women’s athletic direc-
tor in the country. She’s very, very sharp at her job. And so I got on the council
through that. And it was through that connection that later on I got to be Division
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 210 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ I vice president, and then later president. And by then I’d met enough people that
I got—I got support from sources that you might not expect—like, the guy that
ran the Ivy League was a big supporter of mine and things like that, you know?
So I got—I got elected pretty much almost unanimous. There was just a few
votes for another guy. And those were great years to be involved because a lot
was going on, and I enjoyed all the challenges.
[06:23:20.17] SL: What—what was term? How—how long . . .?
AW: Well, each term was two years, so I was—I—I ran the Division I for four years
before I was through.
SL: And what—what was the span? From when to when?
AW: [19]87 to [19]91.
SL: Okay.
AW: For example, when I got [laughs] elected president, the convention always ended
on a Wednesday, and Thursday, the people who were officers in the group, in-
cluding the council, stayed over an extra day because the council term was four
years. I was an additional four years on it. And—and there were forty-four peo-
ple on the council and eleven rotated off every year and eleven new ones. So you
would have a post-meeting meeting, and partly it was to introduce the new people
and—and—and partly to set the agenda for the balance of the year. So—so it’s
Thursday, so I—I hang around all day Thursday. So I get home Friday morn-
ing—I forget where the meeting was—and I am tired. It’s been a hard eight days
or so, and I’m sitting in my chair—easy chair and I’m smoking a cigar and drink-
ing coffee and just [relaxing?]. The phone rings and it’s a sports reporter, a good
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 211 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ guy from USA Today. He says, “What about—what—what do you think about
John Thompson from Georgetown threatening to persuade all black basketball
players to boycott the game? What do you think?” [Laughs] I said, “What?
What? What?” I said, “I hadn’t heard about that.” And he said, “Well, yeah,” he
said, “’cause you passed this legislation that he—John didn’t like.” And—so I
didn’t know what to say, and he said, “John wants a special meeting.” I said, “I
don’t think we’re gonna have a special meeting.” I hadn’t felt that [ ]. We’d
already been over the whole ground—just he hadn’t been paying attention, you
know, and then “What—what did they do? Well, by God, I’m gonna boycott.”
And—but the Southeast Conference—we weren’t in it yet.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: But they were scared to death, because the guy who had pushed this legislation
was their commissioner, and so they were afraid that Thompson would persuade
all blacks to boycott the Southeast Conference. So they were scared to death.
And so we—anyway, we met, but it was that kinda thing, you know? And so I
met Thompson—very imposing man physically, he’s about six-eleven [ six feet,
eleven inches tall] . . .
SL: Hmm.
[06:26:03.08] AW: . . . and big. He is big. Didn’t say a word. Never said—opened
his mouth. His president was a priest from Buffalo, New York, and I really liked
him. He and I were the same age, the same background, both altar boys, and he
became a priest. And he told me some stories that I treasure. But he didn’t know
what to do with Thompson, you know? And I got interviewed by Public Broad-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 212 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ casting [Service] and I got real surly with them, ’cause they were saying, “Well,
of course, you’re gonna . . .”
TM: You’ve got a little—right there near . . .
[06:26:44.20] AW: He said, “Of course, you’re gonna do what John Thompson tells
you to.” And I—“What do you mean?” “Well, because he’s so important.” And
my—all I could think of under pressure—I said, “Well, he may be real important
where you live, but he ain’t important where I live.” [Laughter] So that’s what I
mean is—but you—you get involved—you got involved in these things and—and
it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. [Laughs] So we—we had—finally per-
suaded John that, “We’ll—we’ll restudy the academic thing, but we ain’t gonna
have any special meeting to repeal it, whether you boycott or not.” And I was
kinda hoping they would boycott, ’cause then it would bring things to a head.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: We’d see who stands where, rather—rather than live in a world of threats. Let
’em boycott. It would be the last one is my point. They’d never boycott again,
’cause who are they hurting?
SL: Right.
AW: They ain’t hurting me. They ain’t hurting the school. They’re hurting them-
selves, so let ’em go. But people are afraid to call somebody’s bluff, I’ve noticed.
I guess I’ve played too much poker. You’ve gotta call bluffs. And I had to call
his bluff—let him go. But you can’t do that because you have to think of all the-
se—people in the Southwest Conference were really scared to death that they
would be boycotted. And, of course, and if you’re in the Southeast and blacks
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 213 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ won’t come to your school, you’re in really big trouble. Well, enough of that.
But that was my first day. [Laughter]
[06:28:31.17] SL: Well, is there a particularly proud moment you had as president
during your term—anything that . . .?
AW: Well, I got along real well with the press, because I—my press conferences were
the opposite of the usual guarded spin thing . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . is I told ’em exactly what I thought about each issue that they asked about—
what—what was behind it, what were the arguments for and against it, whether I
thought it was gonna pass or not, and I didn’t get into my personal [feelings]. I
just—I mean, I was objective in summary and I didn’t try to kid them about any-
thing. As a—some people say it’s a good rule because of this. Some people are
against it because of that, and that’s why it’s going on here. And that’s why it
was promoted by who—the people promoting it, and they were identifiable before
their names were on the legislation. And—and so I got along real well with the
press for that reason, and—well, they’re not scary. I mean, all they want you to
do is tell ’em what—what—you know, what’s going on. And so I made a lot of—
I won’t say friends, but I—I was treated well by them. The guy from USA To-
day—he and I became kinda buddies while I was still active, and there’s a guy
that’s still on ESPN [Entertainment Sports Programming Network]—I forget his
name. He does college football, and he and I really got along well, ’cause we
found out we were both cynical in the same way about sports and people. And—
and he’s the only one I’d say really made a friend, but I’m not involved in it any-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 214 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ more. But I’m sure he’d remember me and I certainly remember him. So that
was—I don’t—I didn’t have a crowning moment. I had—I did a couple of things
that I really—the one of which I pushed for 100 percent, and I’m proud of it.
May not sound like a big deal and it’s not a big policy issue, but, you know, the
men—men—football has the Heisman Trophy, and that’s a big deal in college
football. I don’t think the other sports have anything much, but the Heisman gets
this enormous publicity, as we know. Women had nothing. Now, before they
were taken over by the NCAA—women’s sports—they were in a different group,
and I forget who it was. It was a clothing manufacturer who specialized in cloth-
ing for women’s athletes—women athletes. Started to sponsor a banquet, but it
was taken over and became big-time by Honda when the NCAA took it over, be-
cause now it’s got much more publicity value. So Honda took it over, and what
Honda did, which was really pretty neat, is they put on a banquet and they
would—the NCAA at that time sponsored ten women’s sports for championships,
and you can name ‘em: basketball, volleyball, golf, tennis, swimming, track and
field, and so on. And they would name the best woman athlete in the year in each
of these ten sports, so they would all get a nice piece of Stubin glassware or some-
thing as a memento. But then one of those ten would get to be the big dog, and
they tried to make it the equivalent of the Heisman, you know?
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:31:57.21] AW: And it could’ve been the runner. It could’ve been the golfer or
whoever. And that was what the women did. Well, the vice president for Divi-
sion III was a woman named Judy Sweet, and she and I had bonded very early be-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 215 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ cause she had gotten “ricky-dooed” by the staff of the NCAA—beyond belief
what they had done to her. And I found out about it riding in a cab with her to the
airport after the meeting. I didn’t know what was going on. But she was trying to
explain to a seat mate, and I—I began to eavesdrop. And the lawyer in me said,
“Man, you got gypped.” I was really thinking more vulgar words, but you under-
stand what I’m saying.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: “You—they really did you wrong.” And what they did was they told—they
said—she said, “This is what we want to do.” They said, “This is the way you do
it,” okay? So that’s the way she did it. They—they vote the amendment in and
now they say, “Well, we—we made a mistake. That’s not the way to do it.” Can
you imagine doing people—business with people like that? That’s just the staff.
The NCAA is supposed to help you. So she’s explaining that to ‘em, and I went
into a—I—I—all my lawyer instincts were—you know, came alive and I tell
[’em?], “You should’ve done this. You should’ve done that. Next time we’re
gonna do this,” and I’m advocating. So we bonded right early in—in things and
later on became very good friends. In fact, one of—one of my—I’d say my se-
cond-proudest moment was I led the fight to have her replace me as president—
first woman president. Judy Sweet, athletic director, University of California at
San Diego. That was where she’s at. So—and a good ol’ Milwaukee, Wisconsin
girl, I might add.
SL: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 216 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [06:33:41.24] AW: So one night we’re at this convention in Nashville, Tennessee.
And, you know, they’ve got this giant hotel out there by the Grand Old Opry.
Have you ever heard of it? It may be the Grand Old Opry Hotel. It seats . . .
SL: Yeah, yeah.
AW: It houses 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 people.
SL: Out—it’s outside of town.
AW: I don’t know.
SL: Yes, uh-huh.
AW: It’s a giant operation.
SL: Yes, I’ve been there. Uh-huh.
AW: So we’re—we’re at this giant facility that has banquet halls and meeting halls that
can accommodate the world, okay?
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And she says, “Al—” would I like to go to this banquet for the women as her
guest. And I said, “Yeah.” And Dinah Shore was gonna be the honorary woman .
. .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . at that thing. I—I wanted to sneak a peak. Dinah was real old, but I’d always
had a . . .
SL: Sure.
AW: . . . affection for her. So—so I say to her, “Okay.” and she says, “Well, we have
to take a bus downtown.” And she says, “Would you meet me at the exit at 6:00.”
Okay. Fine. So I’m there. It’s raining and I got—it’s winter-time. I got a wool
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 217 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ suit on. No raincoat. So have to get a little doused. You know what wet wool’s
like.
SL: Yeah.
[06:34:47.04] AW: I get in the bus and now it’s that diesel oil and the wet wool and
it’s raining out, and we’re driving thirty-five minutes from the Grand Old Opry
Hotel to downtown Nashville. And about halfway there I said, “Judy, why are we
doing this? Why are we driving down there?” I said, “Why aren’t we having this
banquet back where we came from?” And she said, “They won’t let us.” I said,
“What do you mean, they won’t let you?” She said, “Walter Byers,” who was the
executive director, “has decreed that no other activity can take place except—in
the hotel, except sponsored by the NCAA.” I said, “You mean you’re not there
because the NCAA says women can’t be honored at this affair in the same hotel?”
“That’s right.” You should’ve seen me the next day.
SL: [Laughs]
[06:35:41.20] AW: I—I—I—I take pleasure. I led the fight. I said, “We’re always
talking about how we want to help women. We’re always trying to help women’s
sports.” I said, “And yet we do this to them. I—” And forty-four to nothing was
the vote. They’ve had all their banquets since then there. So that’s my proudest
achievement, really, ’cause I did it on—I did it for the simplest reason. I was sick
and tired of that wet wool . . .
SL: [Laughs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 218 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: . . . and the diesel smell, and why the hell we were driving thirty-five minutes for
no purpose to sit down in a meeting room and have a dinner, which we could’ve
had back there. So that’s my—that’s my . . .
SL: But she . . .
AW: And I am real proud of myself.
[06:36:23.02] SL: But you had a—a woman president that succeeded you. That’s
pretty big.
AW: Yes, and I introduced her by the greatest lines—the greatest opening line in the
history of poetry by William Butler Yates, which is, “May God be praised for
women.” [Laughs]
SL: That’s good.
AW: I kinda like that.
SL: That’s good.
AW: But I was real smart-alecky on the podium. But it’s—it’s—it’s a real sense of
power when you got the gavel and there’s 2,000 people doing what you tell ’em to
do, you know?
SL: Yeah.
AW: Shut up. Real sense of power. I loved it. I really did. I was good at it. As I
told—I mean, I made a lot of impromptu, funny remarks and, you know, I’d—
kept trying to keep things light and stuff like that. That’s what I mean. It’s a—I
didn’t know how to conduct a meeting. I don’t know the Roberts Rules [of Or-
der]. I had—I had two guys—they—do you know what the gold gavel is?
SL: Uh-uh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 219 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [06:37:28.20] AW: Do you know what the silver gavel is?
SL: Uh-uh.
AW: Okay. The—the gold gavel means you’re Roberts himself.
SL: Okay.
AW: Of Roberts Rules. The silver gavel means you’re so smart it hurts . . .
SL: Okay.
AW: . . . about the Rules of Order.
SL: Okay.
AW: I had two silver—silver gavels. I’m standing behind the micro-phone. They’re
down here, kinda like on their hands and knees, advising me.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: “He’s out of order,” you know? [Laughter] “You’re out of order, sir,” and—
[laughter] I didn’t know why. Somebody said, “Why is he out of order?” “Be-
cause he’s violating a—because he’s—” And so finally one time they got this
big, hot issue and the two guys start arguing with each other, so—[laughs] “No,
he’s out of order.” “No, he’s not.” And what the hell am I saying? So they
went—they were wrangling back and forth, and it was getting into—the time was
going on and people were expecting me to give a ruling, and they don’t know
about these two guys down there at my knees . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . fighting over what the ruling should be. And finally they—they said some-
thing and—to give us a few minutes, so I leaned into the micro-phone and I said,
“Well, I’d like to give a ruling, but as you can see, I am a mere puppet in the
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 220 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ hands [laughter] of these two guys.” Later on a guy sent me a case of whiskey.
Al “Puppet” Witte listed on the label. [Laughter] But that—yeah, that’s what I
mean. You had to—you had to diffuse the situation, and that’s about all I could
do, ’cause I didn’t know the rules or—and I really didn’t care how the legislation
came out, I found out. I just wanted to make it orderly and give everybody a
chance to speak. But I did enjoy having that gavel. It’s a—it’s a great feeling.
[06:39:22.07] SL: [Laughs] Is there anything else you want to say about the NCAA
stuff?
AW: Well, this is—this is a technicality and it’s the sort of thing that interests only odd
people.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: But everybody criticizes the NCAA, and there’s two reasons why they’re—
they’re so dumb and they won’t listen to me. One is there is no NCAA. It’s like
they think it’s—there’s a government. Now—it used to be in Kansas City [Mis-
souri] and now it’s Indianapolis [Indiana]. It’s like a separate nation, you know?
Like Star Wars. It’s a—it’s an enemy nation that controls all this stuff. It
doesn’t. There is no NCAA. The NCAA is the member schools. Coaches go
around frequently saying, “You—that damn NCAA. Do you realize they’ve got a
rule that says that I can’t do this and I can’t do that. [ ] NCAA.” And what
they don’t know is that rule was passed by their athletic director or their president.
That’s who the—the NCAA are the people that vote the rules in. It’s—there’s no
people up—there’s no group up in Indianapolis that votes on anything. Now,
what they do have up there are a bunch of dumb staff members who interpret this
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 221 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ stuff. And so the rules are all passed by people on your campus. But these
coaches are saying, “Oh, my—” And athletes, you know? And—and worst of
all, the press. The NCAA—they’re—it’s an evil empire. There is no empire. It
doesn’t exist. The people who vote the rules live on your campus. What is up
there is a staff—well, I’ll give ya—it is so dumb . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[06:41:06.21] AW: . . . that it—it cannot be exaggerated. Who was I talking to? I
think I was talking the last time about the NCAA rule on gambling. At least I was
telling somebody recently.
SL: Hmm.
AW: I get a call from the chief of police of Fayetteville. He wants me to come down.
They found out that eight current Razorback athletes have been betting with a
bookie on sports.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Well, that’s a big no-no, and so I go down there and he gives me the evidence
and—and we talk about it. And so I then investigate all seven of ‘em. Seven of
‘em—or eight of ‘em. Seven of ’em are clearly guilty. They’d been betting on
college games—football, basketball, what have you. But the eighth was not
guilty, because he was betting on professional sports. And when you looked at
the rule it said it’s against the law to bet on college games. Well, now, why the
hell would they limit it to college games? You can get in as much trouble with
bookies not paying your debts on professional games. So that’s a—that’s a mild
example of how short-sighted they are up there. But that’s okay. Now you have
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 222 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ to define “gamble.” And Harvard and Yale, as you may know, like that rowing.
So they’re rowing one day, and the tradition in rowing is that the losing crew
takes off those sweaty little T-shirts and gives ’em to the winners as a token that
you won, and the NCAA said, “You can’t do that. That’s gambling.” Now, you
work out how that’s gambling, where I’m giving you a sweaty T-shirt . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . that was a symbol of you won and I lost. That’s what I mean by the mentality.
SL: Hmm. [Laughs]
[06:42:54.00] AW: They have—they come up with rulings that are so off the wall and
so impossible to understand where their minds are that you can get very frustrated
at ‘em. And that’s the worst part of dealing with ‘em, is—especially since occa-
sionally you’ll find somebody who’s smart and he’ll let ya off the hook, but it’s a
matter of luck who you get when you call the—call up there. And we—we went
through two separate terrible investigations here—both of ’em because of what I
would call extraordinarily stupid interpretations by [NCAA] staff members up
there, in which perfectly innocent conduct was demonized and—and—and
helped—and, among other things, helped destroy Nolan Richards’ [Richardson]
program, because they both involved him. And I—I do believe there was a direct
connection between one of those times and—and his losing his interest in—I
think that’s basically what happened, is he lost his interest in coaching because of
the—the defeats and frustration he felt as a result of an incredibly bone-headed
investigation—allegation—all by staff who never suffer any consequences. I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 223 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ don’t know what else to say about it. We were cleared of the allegations, but only
after years of suffering and enormous expense—time.
SL: And damage.
AW: And damage, yeah. Just—I can’t begin to exaggerate. I—as I say, I really think
that—I think it had more to do with Nolan’s demise as a coach here than any oth-
er incident, was that investigation. Sunday—it’s known as the Sunday Adebayo
investigation.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:44:53.03] AW: And—but it waited until it ranged into a lot of other issues. One of
my favorites is a guy named Billy Joe Edmonds.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: This shows you what you—what I had to deal with that wastes so much time, is—
I don’t know if you remember Billy Joe.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: He was a darn good foot—football player here. From St. Louis. East St. Louis, I
think, which is like being from hell.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And—but maybe I have him confused with Ben Cowans. Ben—I know Ben
Cowans was from East St. Louis. Anyway, the young player decides to come
down here to be recruited, and a man named Jesse Branch was the coach who was
recruiting the St. Louis area, so he brought him down and he had a nice visit and
he liked it and he decided this is where he wanted to come—come play. So he
goes home and his situation is the father had disappeared at an early age and then
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 224 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ tragically his mother had died, and so he was living with his grandmother, who
was not a worldly woman. But the woman who took care of him was his aunt—
his mother’s sister. And she lived in Dallas, where she had a very responsible job
with American Airlines in training stewardesses [flight attendants]. So she’s
still—you know, she’s St. Louis. What does she know about Arkansas except
Governor [Orval] Faubus was—was—was in control, and all that lingered on. So
Bobby Joe calls his aunt and says, “I really liked it down there. I’m thinking of
going there,” and she said, “Well, I gotta check it out first.” So she calls Jesse
Branch and she says, “I’d like to come up and visit Fayetteville and—because my
nephew—” Jesse says, “Well, I can’t—I can’t—we can’t pay your transporta-
tion.” She said, “I work for American Airlines. I can fly anywhere I want for
$10, so that’s not a problem.” He said, “Well, I—” he said, “I can’t pay for your
housing here.” She said, “I—I have a good job. I can pay for my own hotel bill.”
So he said, “Well, what—what time do you think you’ll get here?” And she gives
him her date of arrival and the time. He says, “Well, I’ll pick you up at the air-
port,” and—and he does. And—and they’re going their way to the old Hilton Ho-
tel—what’s it now, Ramada? [Cosmopolitan Hotel]
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:47:16.08] AW: And on the way he said, “Would you like to see the campus?”
“Sure.” So he drives her around the campus. “There’s the football field. There’s
the chemistry building,” whatever—you know. “Old Main.” Takes her to the ho-
tel. How many violations have occurred? Two.
SL: Picked her up.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 225 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: She picked her—he picked her up. The rule is unless you pick everybody’s aunt,
you can’t do a special favor for an athlete. I said—I—I’m trying to deal with the
NCAA, I said “My job at the law school, which I volunteered for, is to pick up
people at the airport. I pick up everybody at the airport. This isn’t special.” “No.
Do you pick up everybody?” “No, we don’t have that kind of program.” So
that’s a violation—picking her up. And . . .
SL: Giving her the tour?
[06:48:06.02] AW: Giving her the tour was the second: didn’t take her right to the ho-
tel, showed her the damn campus. And then, of course, he later on—two more—
he drove her to the airport—picked her up and drove her to the airport. So some-
body turned us in. I don’t know how the hell they find out this stuff, but now I
get the nasty phone call from the NCAA. “You—you’re—you’re a bunch of
criminals,” et cetera, et cetera. Well, the rule is that if you violated these rules
and it did not give you a recruiting advantage—well, it didn’t give us one because
he’d already decided to come here. So the fact that we’d treated this aunt to
this—these violations didn’t help the recruiting. Secondly, if there was no pecu-
niary benefit to anybody. Well, they said, “There was a pecuniary benefit to the
aunt in that she was saved the cost of a taxi. So you have to get her to pay the
cost of a taxi.” And my answer, “Well, we don’t have taxis in Fayetteville,”
which was at the time true. “I don’t know how much to ask her for.” Well, you
understand a man of my distinction is talking to some smart-aleck dumbbell out
of a law—fresh out of a law school, wasting my time talking about what would a
taxi cab charge if you had a taxi cab.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 226 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: [Laughs]
[06:49:40.02] AW: So I talked to some people. She said, “Estimate.” Whoever I
talked to up there said, “Estimate it.” So I talked to some people. “If we had a
cab,” [laughter] “how much do you think they’d charge to come to the campus?”
And anyway, I came up with $12. And I reported back and I lied, and I said,
“We’re gonna ask her for the $12.” And I then told Coach Broyles—I said, “I’m
not gonna ask her for the $12 because I’d be embarrassed, and—and if they find
out about it, blame me.” But that’s the sort—now, that’s the sort of thing—I—
when Jerry Eckwood stole a flower pot worth $15, we had a—he was—he did it
on Wednesday. The game was on Saturday. We had to get him eligible.
[Laughs] I mean, do you believe? Do you understand what I’m spending my
time doing?
SL: Hmm.
[06:50:31.25] AW: Wasn’t that fun? That was not fun—trying to reason with these
idiots. But athletics does control the world, I guess, so there ya are. Fortunately,
I did spent my time on a—once I got in the NCAA world—on issues of much
more interest, like procedural due process and investigations and hearings and ap-
peals. We—there was a great guy—I’m embarrassed. I can’t remember his
name. He was thirty-one years old. He was magna cum laude out of Harvard
Law School. He was a black guy, and he was president of Kentucky State Uni-
versity at age thirty-one. And he—he saved me so much embarrassment. He did
all my thinking for me, and he later quit and went back to practicing law and mak-
ing millions. Sharp, sharp guy, as you can imagine. And we both were sent to a
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 227 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ hearing, and we found out at the hearing there was no representation of the
NCAA. Nobody appeared for a statement of facts. You could—it was—it was
appalling. So he and I wrote a—a set of—a manual for how—how to conduct
hearings, how to conduct appeals, and what the burdens were to that you had to
meet, and so on and so on. So that—that sort of thing you felt worthwhile.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:52:00.04] AW: And I did a lot of that sort of thing. I was the first chairman of the
Minority Opportunities Committee, which—the black coaches, in that they—all
the wanted was a—was an opportunity for an interview. See, they couldn’t get
opportunities to be interviewed for jobs. Nobody would interview them, and so
we—we got some—I won’t say legislation, but we got some commitments from
schools that they would interview—they would open the interview process. And,
interesting enough, after that basketball coaches—black basketball coaches began
to be hired all over the country. And, ‘course, we were considered a kind of a
white knight because we had Nolan Richardson. We were one of the few schools
with a black coach—head coach of a major sport. So that was—that was nice. I
made a real decent, good friend from a guy at San Jose [California] State—a
black guy who took over as chairman after I left. And that committee did a lot of
good work. And there were—there were lots of things. I can’t remember all of
’em right now, but—the generations pass. I—I—I—I did want to mention one
highlight, and that is I had the pleasure of having kind of a—it was a funny set-up,
so I had a—I had an evening of eating and talking to [President] Ronald Reagan
as a result of being president. They have a—they have an annual banquet. The
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 228 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ NCAA had—their big time is an annual banquet where they award—give out
what they call the Teddy Roosevelt award
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:53:44.24] AW: And I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Teddy Roosevelt
is—he issued a statement that is hanging on the wall of every coach in the coun-
try, and it’s “All the praise should go to he who’s in the arena fighting, you know,
and not . . .”
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: “. . . sitting in the stands,” basically. . .
SL: Right.
AW: “. . . booing.” And the coaches love that statement. So they named it the Teddy
Roosevelt award, and it’s gone to a lot of interesting people—a lot of admirals
and generals. George Bush the first [reference to George Herbert Walker Bush]
got one. So Reagan comes along in 1990, and he’s been out of office for two
years, and so they’re giving it to him. And, ‘course, he was under heavy Secret
Service protection at the time. And there’s a big hotel down there, and I’m em-
barrassed I can’t remember the name because it’s got—it’s red brick and there’s
two giant towers and I can’t . . .
SL: This is where?
AW: Dallas—Dallas. I’m sorry.
SL: Okay.
[06:54:39.23] AW: And so they set us up in the lobby, and I was really impressed.
The Secret Service came in first, and he was on the way from the airport in a li-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 229 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ mo[sine], and they’re ahead of him, and they came in and they were under control
of this little woman, and she looked like she was about four-eleven [four feet,
eleven inches], ninety pounds, and she could snap her fingers—oh, poom—and
she was pointing guys that—they’re getting the right angles and all that, you
know, and I’m—I’m up against the wall in a corner . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . and he’s supposed to come in right up to me and being escorted, you know?
So I’m nervous and impressed and all that. And . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . so in he comes, and they march him up there and there’s introductions, and
this and that, and then somebody said, “Well, you might like to rest a little while
before the banquet.” So off he goes and off we go, and then we meet at the ap-
pointed time. And it was the first time that the banquet attendance was over 2,000
people. So I—I introduced the evening by saying that—I announced that this was
a record attendance and that I took that as a personal tribute [laughter], which . . .
SL: Did they get it?
AW: I don’t know if they did or not.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: I—but I gave ’em an effort—I gave it my best effort.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Well, the way it was set up—you remember Harry Reasoner?
SL: Yeah.
[06:56:08] AW: Harry Reasoner was the “emcee” [Master of Ceremonies].
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 230 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Okay.
AW: He was gonna make all the wisecracks and all that. I was gonna introduce every-
body on the stand, and—and then at some point he was—and I—I had made an
introductory speech and it was—they also honor the current group of athletes—
men and women athletes in all the sports—the ones that are seniors right then and
there. And then they also honor the ones that have been out of school twenty-five
years. They give them something called the Silver Award, and they’re the ones
that have done something fairly interesting in life.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: And then the biggie is the Teddy for, in this case, Reagan. Well, the way the—the
way the dinner table—something was wrong at the dinner table because there
were all these people to my left and then there was the podium. Then there was
me and then there was Reagan, and then there were, like, two open seats, and
some poor guy at the end, who was the current president of his university—
where’d he go to school? It was in Illinois somewhere. Euphoria or Eureka. Eu-
reka.
SL: Is that right?
AW: Wasn’t there—isn’t there a Eureka College? I think that’s where he went. Any-
way—but the poor guy was sitting at the end that—they were—obviously there
supposed to be two people in between that didn’t show up, because—so it’s me
and Reagan. That’s—and that was important, because who else could we talk to?
And so we had an interesting conversation. First of all, he wasn’t as tall as I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 231 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ thought he was. He was about an inch taller than me. I thought he was, like, six-
two [six feet, two inches] or something.
SL: Uh-huh.
[06:57:36.06] AW: Perfect health, perfect condition, didn’t have an ounce of fat on
him. And the two physical things I learned about him—he had a beautiful suit on,
too. I remember that. But the two physical things is he said that he worked out
every morning in his basement. He had a full gym, which I thought was interest-
ing. That’s how he kept in shape. And the other was—this is bizarre—he’s near-
sighted, but he only wore one—what do they call those?
SL: Contact lens.
AW: Contact lens. He wore one contact lens and one as God made it. The one contact
lens was to make him see at distance—enabled him to see at distance, and I don’t
know what—now, why he did that, I don’t remember. But he wore one contact
lens, which struck me as odd. But we had a good conversation. I started by tell-
ing him that when I was in the eleventh grade in high school we got in the habit of
going to the Warner Brothers Theater in Erie, PA, and those—and your genera-
tion knows nothing about it, but those were the movie palaces of old, where you
can’t believe how plush they were.
SL: Yeah.
[06:58:49.13] AW: And Sunday night was when we went, and he was the—he was one
of the stars of the movie. It had a great cast. But it was called Kings Row.
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 232 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: And it’s the one great movie he made, and in it the evil doctor has a—Ronald
plays the part of a young athlete at the high school who obviously is not gonna do
much in life, but he went to work at the local saw mill, and now—and he’s in love
with the doctor’s daughter and she’s in love with him. And the doc—the father
doesn’t think he’s good enough for her—at least that’s the ostensible reason. And
there’s an injury at the saw mill and Ronald gets injured and puts him in the pow-
er of the doctor, who amputates his legs.
SL: Oh.
[06:59:47.26] AW: And this dramatic scene is—is highlighted when—you don’t know
exactly what’s happened. You’re fearful it’s what happened. But the scene
blacks out, and then when it comes back, he’s waking up from the anesthetic and
he looks down and there’s no lump under the—under the cover. And he looks
down there and he yells, “Where is the rest of me?” And that’s the big tragedy.
Well, it turns out the father’s having incest with the daughter, which is—in 1940,
you do understand, they don’t even do that much today. Back then, I don’t think
ninety-eight percent of the people in the audience knew there was such a thing as
incest. They were ignorant. But in any event, it’s a very dramatic movie, and
he—he did a good job. It’s the one—and you know it was important to him, be-
cause when he wrote his autobiography—and, of course, I knew all this at the
time—the title of his autobiography is Where is the Rest of Me? So it obvious-
ly—this obviously had great value. So we talked about it, and he was very nice.
He said, “Would you like to know how they hid my legs?” So he went in—I said,
“Sure.” And he—how they fixed the mattress so that his legs were under it, but
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 233 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ there was—and then they had to cover it up so it looked like there was—you
couldn’t see there was a hole in it, you know, and all that. And he went on at
some length. And then I knew he was in the Air Force, as I was, so we talked
about that. And he was very—he—very enthusiastic telling me about how they—
his job was to set up mock structures of islands in the Pacific so that they could be
used for bombing purposes and landing purposes. And then his outfit worked on
these mock things as—thing. But he did admit that he never left California.
Well, I shouldn’t say he admitted it. He—it was clear he hadn’t. And then—then
I kinda ran out of things to say, so I decided, well, I’d at least say something pro-
vocative. I said, “You know, Mr. President, I always thought you didn’t hold
enough press conferences.”
SL: [Laughs]
[07:02:03.28] AW: And he said—he said, “You know why I didn’t?” He said, “I hat-
ed those reporters in Washington.” [Laughs] That’s exactly what he said. He
said, “I hated those reporters in Washington.” He said, “When I got out in the
other cities,” he said, “I had a lot more of ’em there, so I didn’t mind them.” But
he said, “I hated those . . .” [Laughter]
SL: In DC.
AW: He didn’t call ’em a bad name, but I guess he could’ve if he wanted to.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:02:21.06] AW: So that was the [extent]—that’s all I remember from—but it was
an interesting evening. We—you know, I got along well with him—not that I
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 234 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ would’ve ever considered voting for him or—or anything like that, but—you have
to remember he had once been a Democrat for much of his life, so . . .
SL: Yeah.
AW: So I found him—as I say, I found him charming and—and not—and not filled
with a—much of an ego, and his speech was very—what I would call gentle and
mostly about how much he enjoyed college and—and being a football player.
And—and he’d reminisced about his days doing play-by-play baseball [coverage]
on the radio and stuff like that. So it all went very well. But I enjoyed it because
of the peculiar fact that nobody else could get at him.
SL: Yeah.
[07:03:11.10] AW: I also had dinner with [President] Gerald Ford, but that was a little
more complicated because it was a round table and there were, like, six of us.
SL: Uh-huh.
TM: We need to change tapes.
SL: Okay.
[Tape Stopped]
SL: You bet.
AW: He was the doctor and I think the daughter was Nancy Coleman, but I don’t
want—I won’t bet money on her.
TM: [ ]
JE: Okay.
SL: We rolling?
TM: We’re rolling.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 235 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: FireStore good?
JE: Yep.
AW: Well, I was . . .
[07:03:49.28] SL: We were talking about Gerald Ford. You had a . . .
AW: Yeah, the—the occasion was a [NCAA] Final Four [basketball tournament] get-
together in Denver [Colorado], and at that time President Ford had a residence in,
I think, Vail, Colorado.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:04:06.17] AW: So they kinda named him as—I don’t know—I can’t think of right
off the top what—what title they—honorary title they would give him, but he was
sort of the—the Colorado representative to the Final Four. And so, again, it
was—it was one of the nice—may have been the same night of that women’s
banquet I was telling you about. And so I was sitting there with four other people
and him, and the first thing I noticed is what he really wanted to talk about was
his wife’s substance-abuse clinic. He was so proud of her and that clinic. In fact,
that was another reason why he was there. The NCAA had just entered into a
contract with the Betty Ford Clinic with—for substance-abuse people. I don’t
know who they were in the conference.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Whether it might be like an athletic director or a coach could—or athletes could
get access to it. But in any event, he—he was—you could tell he was genuinely
proud of his wife for . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 236 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [07:05:05.16] AW: . . . what she had done. And, ‘course, everybody else wanted to
talk about—well, he was—played football at Michigan and all that. But I trapped
him. I gave it a lot of thought, and that was few people know that when he gradu-
ated from Michigan, he went to Yale. And he couldn’t get in Yale Law School
right off the bat, ’cause his résumé—his transcript wasn’t quite up to their level.
But they told him that he could improve it, so he became an assistant football
coach at Yale for a couple years and worked in some way to get his grades up.
And finally they admitted him to Yale Law School. And consequently—and this
is why it’s important—it’s one of the most famous Yale classes in history, be-
cause in addition to Gerald Ford being it, there were two [United States] Supreme
Court future justices—Byron “Whizzer” White and Potter Stewart from Ohio.
And there was Cyrus Vance . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:06:19.05] AW: . . . Secretary of Defense under all sorts of presidents, and many
other distinguished graduates. Yale is extraordinarily proud of that—it was the
class of [19]41. And so I got the—I said, “What did you think about Yale?” and
all that. He—he—you know he had gone through life, nobody ever asking him
about that part of his background, you know? So I felt like I’d gotten a little per-
sonal with him. And he talked great—how great it was back then. And so—so
it—it wasn’t a big deal like it was with Reagan—just one of many talking to him.
But he was very enthusiastic about it, and I liked—obviously, a likeable guy.
No—no ego. Nothing to him. And I didn’t—we didn’t get a chance to visit with
him afterwards, so it was just this dinner table and, ‘course, other people had their
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 237 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ share of his time. But in any event, those—those were two highlights—meeting
former presidents under those circumstances, and I don’t know who—I don’t
know—I met the—a great woman athlete and, again, I’m getting—Althea Gib-
bons [Gibson]. Do you remember her? She was—she was the first black woman
to win Wimbledon. She won Wimbledon . . .
SL: Yes.
[07:07:38.15] AW: . . . two years in a row [1957 and 1958]. And then you couldn’t
make any money in those days as a tennis player—especially, I guess, if you were
a woman, since I don’t know if anybody would come out to see you play. So she
turned golfer and—and just made—made herself at an advanced age into a pro-
fessional golfer. And I really don’t know whether—how successful she was at
that. But I think—and she—you know, she had this interesting career, but she
had a lot of bitterness in her because I think she felt she hadn’t been treated right,
given her accomplishments. So that—she was not a happy—happy camper, and I
can understand why not.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Because I imagine life had been a big struggle for her. You know, I—did you ev-
er hear of Jesse Owens?
SL: Oh, yeah.
[07:08:27.05] AW: You know, if—if somebody had voted—asked me—vote the all-
time greatest athlete in our history, I’d vote Jesse Owens. I remember picking up
a morning paper when I was a schoolboy and turning to the sports page, and the
headline was, “Owens sets four world records” at the Big 10 track meet in, like,
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 238 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ 1935. He set four world records in the four events that he—now, you don’t do
that every day. Great—such a great athlete. Well, what’s he do after he comes
back from the [19]36 Olympics in Berlin? Embarrasses Hitler and all that.
What’s he do for a living? Nothing. He—there’s no—nobody—there’s no de-
mand for—so he went around giving exhibitions, and he came to Erie, PA, and he
did three events. I don’t know how much money he made—$100 maybe—$200.
I don’t know what life was like then, but—we had a—in Erie we had an old guy
that had gotten the silver medal in the 400 meters in the 1928 Olympics, and that
was the last time he’d exercised.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: So it’s, like, 1940 . . .
SL: Oh, God.
[07:09:37.00] AW: . . . okay? But they got—so Jesse wants to come and give an exhi-
bition in the 100-yard dash. Who we gonna get—old Pete out? That was his first
name—Pete. Get Pete out and get him off the beer and running a little bit.
[Laughter] So Jesse didn’t know who this guy was. He just knew he was a silver
medal winner once. And they line up—it was the funniest thing you ever wanted
to see. The gun goes off and Jesse is like a streak of light, and he’s forty years
out—forty yards down the track, like, in one step. And he—and the other guy is
thirty yards behind. [Laughter] And Jesse took one look behind and you could
see he went into the lower gear. He didn’t just—he—he just slowed. But he was
gonna set a world’s record if that guy came anywhere near him. Then he ran the
hurdles. Did you know there once was a race called the 200 [meter] low hurdles?
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 239 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Uh-uh.
AW: They—that used to be a track—is they take a hurdle and they take the top part—
move it down so it’s a low hurdle. And Jesse could run ’em and—and he went
over ’em so quick, it looked like it was just like a little hitch in his—in his left leg
as he went down there. It was just like he—he lifted a little bit from the normal
stride. And he had the world record in it, and then he broad-jumped, as they used
to call it—long jump . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . and put on an exhibition. But he was reduced to racing against horses and
things like that . . .
SL: I kinda remember something that.
AW: . . . to—to—to make a living. Well, what do you think Althea could do? Nobody
was interested in her. So I could see why she was bitter, but she was not a—she
was—she didn’t much care about the Teddy Award. So those were the two peo-
ple I met in my—my days there. What else? What else? Are we—? Who else
you want to hear about?
[07:11:41.24] SL: We hadn’t said anything about your family.
AW: Oh, yeah. Well, I—I was—you know, I was a late bloomer. I—I graduated from
high school when I was seventeen, but I went in the service when I—real close to
my—I enlisted, like, a week after I turned nineteen. And so then I was in almost
three years. Then I had to wait a semester. I got out too late to go to the fall se-
mester, so I didn’t enter school until the winter. And then I was—I got a master’s
degree—you know, it was, like, four years and a half or something. Then I taught
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 240 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ English for two and a half years, and then I realized I didn’t want to do that any-
more. So by now I’m twenty-nine years old and I don’t know what to do. And a
friend of mine who had gone through a similar experience had gone to work for a
company that sold Dove soap. Dove soap was—was a new invention, and every-
body in the country was buying this soapless soap. He said, “Why don’t you go
to work for my company?” He said, “I’m selling this stuff.” He said—he said,
“You’ll get rich.” And I thought, “Oh, my God, I’m gonna spend my life selling
Dove soap. I can’t do that.” So I went to law school. Well, by the time I get out
of law school I’m thirty-two. And by the time I get down here—as I say, I’m just
a month short of thirty-four, and I—at that time I couldn’t support myself very
well, let alone a family. So it took me—and then they didn’t pay me much down
here at the beginning. It took me about four years to get to a—what I would call
an adequate salary. So I got married—very advanced age. I think I was—it was
either thirty-seven or thirty-eight, and my wife was a lot younger.
[07:13:35.03] SL: And what was her name?
AW: Her maiden name was Anna Keen.
SL: Keen.
AW: Keen. K-E-E-N. There’s a large tribe of ’em living out in the Baldwin area.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: I don’t know where the city limits of Baldwin are, but they’re close by. Her fa-
ther owned fifty-four acres of pasture land there. Raised a few cows and he
made—he was famous for making fishing flies.
SL: Hmm.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 241 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Yeah. And he got a small pension from the railroad for injuring his back when he
worked for them. So she—and she had four older brothers. One was a rural—
one was a rural . . .
SL: Postman?
AW: . . . postman.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:14:26.03] AW: And one was an electrician—worked for the university. One
owned a tire company and one owned—and one was an engineer and worked
for—I want to say—it’s not Timex, but it sounds like Timex, down in Dallas, and
then her. And we—we got married and a son was born eleven months later, and
another son was born fifteen months after that. So I had two sons. And Sue and I
divorced about twenty, twenty-one years ago. Late—late [19]80s.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: About [19]87, I think.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:15:19.09] AW: And the two boys had long since reached twenty-one, and I—that
was important, ’cause I didn’t—I had been abandoned—my family had been
abandoned by my father and I wasn’t—I was not of a mind to abandon mine or I
would’ve left a lot earlier. So the marriage didn’t work and—both boys live in
Fayetteville. My older son works for a company out of Memphis. He’s—he’s in
the—sells appliances and equipment of that kind to businesses in northwest Ar-
kansas. He goes all the way over to Harrison and that area. Works hard. Has al-
ways worked hard, and is married and has a daughter, and they’re a very—very
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 242 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ lovely family. They seem to be very loving to each other. He worships—I know
he worships his wife and his daughter. He and I get—have always gotten along
well. My other boy has had a lot of trouble, mostly with substance abuse, which
has led him to do some really unfortunate things. So he’s been in trouble with the
law. And far as I know, he doesn’t work. I’m not sure he’s even employable,
given his work record. And he lives with his mother—has never married. I
don’t—I don’t see how he could afford that. It’s very sad. We—he and I don’t
see much of each other—maybe—well, we went—we recently went five years
without seeing each other, and then he called me. And since then I think we’ve
been together—in the last year we’ve probably spent two or three afternoons to-
gether.
SL: Hmm.
[07:17:10.24] AW: He’s—you know, he’s—he’s—he’s very intelligent. In his prime
he was as handsome as anybody in Fayetteville—charming. He’s just had trouble
with alcohol and—and some of the things that he’s done as a result. So it’s very
sad—very sad to have seen that happen. But eventually you realize, no matter
what that you can’t do anything about it. And when people say it’s up to the per-
son to change if they want to change, it’s 100 percent true. You can talk ‘til
you’re blue in the face and it means nothing. So there ya are. I don’t know
what—I really have no idea what he’s gonna do. I don’t see—I don’t see either
him or his mother enough to count, really. And the emotions are such that I—I
think I’m better off, really, by not seeing them, in—in that it’s very traumatic . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 243 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: . . . to have contact. It’s—I’m—I think I’ve told you, I—I’ll say it again, ’cause
—when I was in college I dated a wonderful woman, Nancy, who was so bright—
so much smarter than me. And we had a severe disagreement about something
and left—left school sort of—hostility is too strong, but there—it was—there
were no warm feelings evident. And then years later we ran into each other—
thirty-three years later, and I—she visited me and I visited her. She was happily
married, but she came down just to see me and I went up to see her. And I said to
her one time, “Why didn’t we get married?” And her answer was, “Because you
were emotionally immature.” [Laughter] And I realized she’d nailed it in one,
which is further evidence of her mental superiority. Incidentally, she’d quit being
an English teacher and had gone to—back to graduate school and had earned a
PhD in psychology. So [laughter] her analysis of my—my—took on added force.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: An English major—who cares what they think? [Laughter] A PhD in psycholo-
gy—maybe you should pay attention. So anyway, that’s what she told me, and I
thought, “Well, I think she’s nailed it in one. What are you gonna do about that?”
So I—I suffer from emotional immaturity.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: And I think it’s evidenced in some—some of the things that I’ve covered with
you, plus the difficulty I have with my son—my younger son.
[07:20:14.25] SL: Well, you’ve got a granddaughter, though.
AW: Great granddaughter. People don’t realize it, but she looks just like me.
SL: Uh-huh. [Laughter]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 244 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: I have a picture to prove it, but the people just deny it. She’s got a lot of my char-
acteristics. She’s mouthy, a little belligerent, a crypto-feminist.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: She—she’s her own woman, and more power to her. I just hope I last long
enough to see how she goes.
SL: How—how old is she now?
AW: Eight.
SL: Eight.
[07:20:54.13] AW: I’d like to hit double digits, but ya never know. There was a great
line—did you ever hear of Red Skelton? Do you remember Red Skelton?
SL: Absolutely. I used to watch him every show.
AW: He was—and you remember Brooke Shields?
SL: Yeah.
AW: And remember Brooke Shields when she was, like, a teenager.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: How beautiful she was.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: It was just—nobody’d ever seen anybody like her. He was a guest on the Johnny
Carson Show one night and, you know, Red was half crazy or more than half cra-
zy, and—but this night he was doing real well and . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . Johnny said something about—about his age and that he said—he said—
[laughs] he said, “All I want to do is live long enough to see who the first lucky
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 245 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ guy is that nails Brooke Shields.” [Laughter] And I thought, “That’s not a bad
life’s ambition.”
SL: [Laughs]
AW: Well, I don’t want to carry it quite that far with my granddaughter, but it—the
idea is I’d kinda like to see what she turns into, you know? And then the other
great comedian, Phyllis Diller, was on the same show and, you know, she had,
like, eight kids.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:21:59.03] AW: And—and she said something that I—that you have to adjust to if
you ever were a parent, and that is she said—to Carson, she said, “What you have
to do with your children is at age fifteen you cut the cord.” And I thought, “Well,
maybe sixteen?” But, you know, [laughs] you couldn’t argue with her. She knew
what she was talking about. I thought, “My God, that’s not long.”
SL: It’s not.
AW: You know, you—it’s overnight and there, she’s eight. And overnight she’s gonna
be asking for a car, you know?
SL: Yep.
[07:22:31.27] AW: And there it is. And—and you’re gonna cut the cord or not. So
anyway, I find all that sort of thing interesting. But my—my son really wor-
ships—and it’s interesting. I was talking to Lynn [Hodges], I think it was earlier .
. .
SL: Uh-huh.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 246 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: . . . about fathers and their daughters. It’s—it’s—you hear a lot about mothers
and sons . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . which—all of which is true, I think. But fathers and daughters is a—is also an
interesting world, and he—he—you could tell he just worships her. I don’t un-
derstand it.
SL: [Laughs]
AW: You know, because the stereotype is that you’re supposed to want sons, you
know, but he didn’t. I think he’s happier with her. But enough of that, but—
yeah, I have a nice family, but it’s a small one, and . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:23:33.20] AW: I have a younger brother who died and a younger sister who died,
so the—my generation’s pretty well gone. My mother’s been dead a long time. I
think about her a lot. She was a pistol. My mother was—was—that tough gener-
ation, you know? She had a—she had a—she was the oldest of seven. She had to
quit school when she was in the sixth grade to go to work full-time and support
the—help support the family. And she was more cultured than I ever was. She
really—she loved the opera.
SL: Yeah.
AW: She read all the time. She went to plays. I used to tease her, ’cause —I don’t
know if you remember Jethro Bodine [from The Beverly Hillbillies TV show].
SL: Sure.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 247 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [07:24:27.07] AW: But Jethro had also graduated from the sixth grade, so [laughter] I
used to point out to her the coincidences. But never mind. [Laughter] She was
a—she was a tough-minded woman—tough. I wish I—I had her mental strength,
and she died that way, too. She—she died when she was ninety-one, and she was
still tough to the end. She—she ended her days in a nursing home, and some
months before she died there was an election up in Pennsylvania—big election—
state—US senator, governor, and all that sort of thing. So some—some workers
had been asked to come in her room and I don’t know—fix the heater or the air-
conditioning or something, and so she’s talking—they’re there and she starts talk-
ing to ‘em. She said, “You gentlemen gonna vote?” And, “Yeah.” And, you
know, “Who ya gonna vote for?” and all that. And so they said to her, “Well, are
you gonna vote?” She said, “No, they don’t let us vote up here.” “No kidding.
Well, that’s not right.” So about two days later some woman shows up from the
local Democratic Party. “Would you like to register to vote?” [Laughs] And
she—she—she registered everybody that was still mentally competent in the
building, so I—next time when I saw her, I said—I said, “I congratulate you.
You’re leading a civil rights movement [laughter] up here in St. Mary’s Home at
your advanced age.” She got voting rights for the inmates. But she was that kind,
you know?
SL: That’s good.
[07:26:20.25] AW: She—she was very funny. She—I was visiting her one time and
there was a woman down the hall that started singing “Take Me Out to the Ball
Game,” and it was like a broken record. When she finished the last verse, it
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 248 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ was—start over again—“Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” And it went on and on,
and I’m very—I’m very—you know, emotionally immature. [Laughter] And I—
suddenly I start going a little crazy, and my mother’s just, you know? And I said,
“Don’t the women up here—” she’s in the women’s department, obviously,
“Don’t the women up here object to this?” She said, “No, they like it.” [Laugh-
ter] And she said, “And also she’s got another song she sings.” And I say,
“What’s that?” And she says, “Pony Boy.” And [laughter] so they’re—my
mother was used to—but, I mean, it—I thought it was funny the way she—“No,
they’re used to it and they like it.” [Laughter] “And then she’s got another
song—‘Pony Boy.’”
SL: [Laughs]
[07:27:32.01] AW: I guess my favorite does have a political thing. She was a “black”
Democrat, and she was all wheel-chaired up, and I used to have to haul her
around and—and I was never very nice to her, and I’d throw her in this wheel-
chair, and she liked to go to one of these standard franchise restaurants. I think
it’s called Perkins—very popular up north.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: I don’t know—maybe down south, too, for that matter. But anyway, she liked to
go there, and her favorite meal was a steak sandwich after—before when she got a
cup of broccoli and cheese soup. So the standard order, and she’s ordering that,
and they bring in the soup. And I don’t know—you probably remember, but
some months before that, Bush the first had gotten in trouble by saying how much
he despised broccoli.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 249 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Yes.
AW: Okay? So my mother never mentioned Bush, never mentioned his comment, but
she’s got this bowl of—cup of broccoli and cheese soup in front of her, and she
gets the spoon and she leans over, and as she’s taking—about to take the first [
], she says, “And this is—and this is another thing that idiot’s wrong about.”
[Laughter] I knew who she was talking about, and she knew I knew who she was
talking about. That was her way of saying Bush was an idiot, but she didn’t have
to mention his name or anything. So even at that advanced age, she and Leflar
were still on a par, you know?
SL: Yeah.
[07:29:03.08] AW: So I—I—I treasure that memory, ’cause —“And that’s another
thing that idiot’s wrong about.” [Laughter] So—anyway, I have great memories
of her, and—but she had a tough life. She had a tough, tough life, ’cause she—
she married a bad person who abandoned her, and she was trying to support three
kids on $17 a week as a—as a telephone operator. Couldn’t make it. Had to
move in with her mother, you know? That sort of thing. It was a tough time for
her. She had a tough life. And she was a very devout Catholic, so remarriage was
out of the question. Even divorce was out of the question.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: I met my father later on. I never liked him much, but he kind of played the father
card, and he said that he—twice he came up to ask her for a divorce and both
times she turned him down. And it turned out that she wouldn’t give him a di-
vorce until her two sons were not—were in the service and far away—wouldn’t
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 250 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ know about it. I don’t know. I think it was some sort of guilt in her mind about
she thought we would be upset, which, of course, was wrong. But that’s the way
her mind worked. She was very devout, and she finally let him off the hook. But
he had no grounds to divorce her in those days, so she had to consent. And as far
as I know, she never had another date in her life from age about twenty-seven to
death.
SL: That’s strong.
[07:30:41.24] AW: Yeah. And—but, you know, I—on the other hand, there was lots
of good stuff about that. If you had—if you had enough money to get by, life
could be pretty good, ’cause she—you sure didn’t waste your time on anything
nonessential. You made up your own games, you know—household games—
card games were—God, you—[ ]. Nobody would play with my mother . . .
SL: [Laughs]
AW: . . . in the family. She was . . .
SL: Too good.
AW: No, no, the opposite.
SL: Oh.
AW: She said she had—the—the word was “Sarah has no card sense,” [laughter] and
nobody would be her partner. So—[laughs] never mind. Family stuff. It’s all
crazy.
SL: Well, now, we’ve—we’ve . . .
TM: We’ve . . .
SL: . . . covered your family pretty good the first time we met.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 251 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Oh, I forgot all that.
SL: No, we . . .
[07:31:27.24] AW: I got—well, anyway, I shouldn’t get back into it, although obvi-
ously I’m doing it. But anyway, I have a lot of nieces and nephews—three of
‘em, and they’re—and, of course, great-nieces and nephews in New York City—
in, specifically, Brooklyn. They all live in Brooklyn. And two boys and a girl.
And then there’s six in the Carolinas: one in Charlotte, North Carolina; two in—
three in Myrtle Beach [South Carolina]; and two in Charleston [South Carolina].
And to my knowledge, all but one are married, and I don’t know about him. But
they’re—they’re a nice group of kids. My brother and his wife raised a very nice
family. I don’t see them much. I’m only close to one of ‘em, and I keep in touch
with her. But that’s about it. So the Wittes are dying out.
SL: Well . . . [Laughs]
AW: And who cares?
SL: Well, they’re still there. They’re still . . .
AW: Well, yeah.
SL: Yeah.
[07:32:36.21] AW: But then see—I’ve got to—I’ve got to persuade Anna to be Anna
Witte-Pryor or whatever, you know?
SL: [Laughs]
AW: I mean, something to keep the name alive.
SL: [Laughs] That’s right.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 252 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Or I—or I really want to do is adopt a boy. In fact, I’m gonna—I’m gonna start
poisoning the well.
SL: Yeah.
AW: It’s funny how those things get important to ya.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: Well, what else? Law school, Fayetteville . . .
SL: Man, you’ve—you’ve touched just about every base.
AW: Who—you got any questions?
TM: I will after I review this, probably. I’ll think of things we didn’t cover. But, boy,
I tell you what, there’s . . .
[07:33:23.09] AW: Well, you know, I—I—I really like Arkansas. I like so many
things about it, though it’s easy to get frustrated. You will agree to that.
SL: Yes.
AW: There’s an anti-intellectualism that’s at the bedrock of a lot of Arkansans’ feel-
ings. I mean, they—there’s something about it that doesn’t appeal to them. And
you have to—you have to deal with that. But it—it doesn’t manifest itself except
periodically in the Legislature. On the other hand, they do kinda strap themselves
clean to finance a lot of schools and—and stuff. The—I like the students. I used
to like the ones that were upwardly mobile.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:34:09.07] AW: A guy like—what the hell is it? Jerry Canfield—Elkins, Arkansas.
This—to me, this was—this was what gave me so much pleasure when I was first
here. Jerry goes to Elkins High School in the [19]60s, and he and I get to be
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 253 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ friends, and he’s a good student. And so I just start asking him—it was just kinda
conversation. I had no ulterior motive. I said, “What was Elkins High School
like?” He said, well, he had taken all the academic subjects at the end of the tenth
grade. So I said, “Well, what’d you do in the eleventh and twelfth grade?” He
said, “Well, me and another guy built an outdoor basketball court.” That’s what
life was like in the [19]60s in Elkins High School. Now, I went to a high school
in Erie in the Depression. My civics/political science teacher had a PhD from
Harvard. My speech teacher had a master’s from Michigan, you know? I mean,
of course, it was the Depression and people were looking for jobs.
SL: Right.
AW: And if all you can get’s a high—I’m in a poor industrial area. I’m in the poorest
area of town, where every other house is on county welfare—get the big box of
essentials every month put in front of your house to embarrass you, you know,
from the county truck. Sugar and coffee and salt and pepper and lard and whatev-
er the—you know, bacon. Every third house, I’ll say. That was my neighbor-
hood. But we had a high school like that with that kinda teachers in it—had great
teachers. And there he is—and there he is, a kid as smart as him, and it’s all over
at the tenth-grade level, really. Now, he may have exaggerated a little bit and I
may be exaggerating, but what else could they—? They didn’t have . . .
SL: Well, there’s . . .
AW: . . . foreign languages. They didn’t have anything.
[07:36:03.12] SL: That has kind of a pioneer patina about it, though.
AW: Yeah, that’s true.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 254 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: Get working with the hands and . . .
[07:36:10.09] AW: Well, yeah, but he wanted to be a lawyer, you know?
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: He—and—and that’s what he became, and he went to Fort Smith. As far as I
know, he’s had a good career down there. But the point is, the upwardly—
upwardly mobile—is it mobile? That’s what I want—is the people who were try-
ing to get out of the—here and get up to here.
SL: Raise themselves up.
AW: And are working—just working like heck to . . .
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: . . . to lift themselves up. Those were the ones I liked to know and help, not by
giving ’em grades they didn’t deserve or anything like that, but just encourage-
ment and whatever advice or wisdom I might have is—but just to send ’em on
their way. And I always had kind of a—it was kind of a class distinction. I—I
never liked the sons and daughters of rich—there weren’t too many daughters,
but—of the successful who were lazy and knew they were gonna grease their way
through life with very little effort on their part.
[01:37:09.27] SL: Let’s—let’s do this. What about some advice to an incoming law stu-
dent? What would you tell ‘em?
AW: Well, first thing I would say is “Why didn’t you come in a couple years ago when
I could tell you which courses to take to get ready for law school?” [Laughter]
I’d—I’d start off on a negative, “You dummy.” [Laughter] That’s not very en-
couraging, is it? I would tell ’em that they should take as many courses in under-
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 255 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ graduate school where they get evaluation of their writing, where somebody who
knows what they’re talking about says to that essay, “This is—this isn’t a very
good sentence and this is not a very logical paragraph,” and—and—and gets ’em
to think in writing, because that’s about—how much is that in law school? Like,
all of it, you know?
SL: Right.
AW: Reading and writing.
SL: Uh-huh.
[07:38:01.19] AW: And I’m a firm believer that that’s the best training for law school.
Not so much whether you know how to use the semicolon properly, but being
able to express yourself clearly and logically and concisely and in a coherent way,
and so on. Those are virtues. That would be my big one. And the second is in
terms of study. Students waste so much time is reading the material and go to
class and then when you—‘course, they don’t—they don’t—I don’t think they
spend as much time on it as we—we had to do, ’cause they’ve got all these mod-
ern devices for—you know, computers and Lexis[/Nexus legal Internet search en-
gine ] for research. They can—they can save a lot of time from what we could
do. But I always recommended rereading the material after you finish it, so
you—say, you’re in contracts and you’re studying the concept of promissorial es-
toppel, and you read five cases on that doctrine, and you went through ‘em.
And—and then when you’re through and you—you got, like, two hours on the
weekend, you reread those five cases afterwards, and now they make a lot more
sense to you. Now you understand ‘em. Before, “Oh, my mind’s awhirl,” you
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 256 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ know? But now you do it a second time, and I always—I’m talking about reread.
Reading it once is—you know, a reread—you’re mostly—“How the hell’s this
coming out? Who’s gonna win?” Oh, you know—reread it to then figure out
what the court was saying and trying to teach you what the court was trying to
teach you. And that’s a reread. I would tell ’em to do that. That’s how I got
ready for exams was just rereading the material. I didn’t think notes were very
important. I thought the—what you were assigned was important, and so I would
reread it before the exam. That would be it. And then if I—if I didn’t understand,
of course, I’d go to a Hornbook—that is a—some treatise that explained the sub-
ject and see if I could—and see if that could explain it for me, ’cause I was too
dumb to—and the professor was too dumb and our minds never met . . .
SL: [Laughs]
[07:40:04.01] AW: . . . so to speak. Those were some—that would be some of the ad-
vice I’d give ‘em. And I’d always tell ’em to take notes about when they could
read the body language of the professor, ’cause when the—when the professor
moves in an erotic way, he’s telling ya something that he really likes, [laughter]
you know what I mean? He’s—it’s something important. Write it down and find
a place in the exam to put it in every answer, because you’re gonna—[laughs]
it’s—somewhere it’s gonna help you. [Laughter] I mean, read those SOBs’
minds. Like, I audited—I should’ve mentioned this with Leflar—I audited his
conflicts course in 1975. I always thought that there was a time if he—if he dis-
appeared before I did, that I might succeed him teaching conflicts. And, in fact, I
did. So I thought, “Well, hell, I’ve gotta learn from the master.” And I was kinda
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 257 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ chicken. I—I—I made him promise he wouldn’t call on me, and I later regretted
it, ’cause I got interested and I started to understand, and I could read him. I got
to the point where I knew what was here. And he loved the case called Home
Dick Insurance Company, and I finally figured out—the chances were ten to one
that the answer to any question he asked was “Professor Leflar, Home Dick Insur-
ance Company.” He—“That’s right.” [Laughter] And so—so—but I couldn’t
say it, ’cause I’d extracted this promise.
SL: Uh-huh.
AW: So I used to whisper it to the students around me: “Home Dick Insurance Compa-
ny. Tell him Home Dick.” [Laughter] Anyway . . .
SL: [Laughs] That’s terrible.
AW: What?
SL: That’s terrible. [Laughter]
PW: I wish you’d been in class with me.
SL: [Laughs]
[07:41:52.19] AW: Oh, you know, it—it—but, I mean, I—what I was getting around
to is you can figure out a professor after a while. You can say—after a while, if
you’re a close observer—he loves this case, so now you go study that case and
remember what he said. That’s what you take a note about. And then whenever
you can fit it in the answer, it’s gonna up your grade. I’ll bet money on it—bet
money on it. So that’s what I’d tell ‘em. Little tricks of the trade.
SL: That’s good.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 258 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ [07:42:21.26] AW: And also I would tell ‘em—this is very important—never pay at-
tention to anything a student says, because students are not your friend. They are
not. And, plus, which, they don’t know anything. Student—the students will go
around saying, “Well, now, if you want to get good grade from Professor Witte,
you say this or that.” They don’t know what they’re talking about. They have no
idea what they’re talking about. And the chances of you getting good advice from
a student are purely accidental. But I would tell ’em to avoid students.
SL: I like that.
PW: [Laughs]
[07:42:57.20] AW: I’m serious. Well, I remember—okay, here’s the deal. At my law
school they had a—they had a very liberal policy—if you didn’t like your grade,
you could take the exam over the next time the course was taught, and whichever
was your higher grade would remain your higher grade.
SL: That’s great.
AW: The first one or the second one—whatever. So it was very liberal. Now, I am
taking the easiest course in law school, which was called Personal Property,
which—where all these little concepts about what is a gift inter vivos, a gift in-
ter—what’s the other one? Causa mortis. The law of abandoned property, the
law of lost property, and so on—and bailments—easy as pie. Easy as pie. It’s—
it’s easier than learning how to drive a car, really. So—but I’m—I don’t know
what—how well I’m doing. I haven’t ever gotten a grade in law school. So I’m
taking my final, and in comes a guy who I knew. He’s a senior, and he wants to
talk—and he—but he’s retaking the test under that policy. So he’s opening—I’m
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 259 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ trying to read the morning paper. I hated to talk about exams. I wanted to forget
‘em. And his opening remark to me is, “How many issues did you see in that first
question?” “I don’t want to talk about the exam.” He said, “Come on. How
many issues did you see?” And I said, “Three.” “Three? I saw twenty-one.”
SL: [Laughs]
AW: I’ve never forgotten this conversation. “I saw twenty-one.” I said, “What?”
’cause I didn’t see twenty-one, I saw three. And he said, “Yeah.” He said,
“Didn’t you see the agency issue?” And at that point I knew there was something
wrong because we hadn’t mentioned agency. We—this was Personal Property.
We weren’t studying agency. So what the hell was he doing talking about an
agency? That was for a later course, called Agency. And I knew right then and
there, don’t pay attention to students. I got a good grade and he didn’t.
SL and PW: [Laughter]
AW: ’Cause I wrote about the only three issues that were important and he wrote about
eighteen more that had nothing to do with the problem, you know? So students
are not your friend. They’re dumb.
SL and PW: [Laughter]
AW: Okay, are we finished.
SL: I think we’re done. I think that’s a good way to end, too.
AW: Well, it’s always nice talking to you guys.
SL: Hmm?
AW: What? Oh, 10:00!
SL: 10:00!
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 260 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ AW: Hey, we started at 1:00.
TM: Is that right?
SL: That’s right.
AW: A nine hour.
SL: Nine hours. That’s the record.
AW: And you know something? I still feel pretty good.
SL: That’s the record. That’s the Pryor Center record.
AW: Huh?
SL: It’s the Pryor Center record.
AW: Are you serious?
SL: Well, there’s nine hours here and six hours from before. That’s fifteen hours.
AW: Wow. And there’s so much . . .
PW: Is that the longest interview y’all have ever done?
SL: It is.
AW: And there’s so much—and I’m gonna spend the weekend saying, “God, I wish I
had . . .”
SL: Yeah, I know.
TM: We can—we can pick it up . . .
SL: Well, yeah.
TM: [ ] at some point.
SL: No, I’m serious. Call us.
[07:45:48.24] AW: Now, you know, I could talk about Leflar endlessly. I really could.
When he came into my office and said that Warren Berger had called him . . .
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 261 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ SL: I know.
AW: . . . within an hour. The look on his face was, “Santa Claus came and brought me
that toy train.”
SL: [Laughs]
AW: That was the look on his face, you know? “Honest to God, Santa Claus came last
night. Warren Berger, the chief justice, called me.” And, oh, God, it was—see,
there was a big history there. The guy that had—who had vacated the position got
kicked off the court or he resigned—resigned because he had taken money for
giving speeches.
SL: Yeah.
[07:46:23.14] AW: And so Berger was asking Leflar, “Would you look in your records
to see if you ever paid me for talking at your seminar on—on the judicial work?”
And Leflar was—had looked it up—said, “No, you’re—nothing at all,” you
know? And Berger was so happy and they—they were buddies anyway, and—
but the look on his face, “Warren Berger called me and he only was announced an
hour ago.” You could tell it was important to him. And his—his—his misery
over never making the federal bench—John McClellan screwed him.
SL: Oh.
AW: That—that broke his heart.
SL: I didn’t know about that.
[07:47:03.05] AW: Oh, yeah. He would’ve been a perfect appellate court judge. He
taught all the appellate judges in the country. He got famous for teaching ’em
how to be an appellate judge, and he never—his only experience—this was—he
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 262 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ had bitter disappointments in—among his trials. First of all, he ran for the Su-
preme Court in the 1940s and lost, and he always claimed—he told me. I know it
wasn’t just a story. Right. Right. Yeah, he claimed it was ’cause all his students
were in the service, so they didn’t vote—couldn’t vote for him. And, secondly,
when—about 1950—a vacancy occurred and the governor appointed him for,
like, a year-and-a-half term and then he was—couldn’t—couldn’t run again. And
then they tried—Fulbright tried to get him on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals,
and McClellan vetoed it—said he was too liberal. And that’s what happened.
And he—it was a great loss to the appellate Bar. But it was a great personal loss
to him, ’cause that’s what he was weaned to do. So he had his losses, too. And
his first wife left him, and that hurt—that hurt him, I know. He—we talked about
that. They had raised—it was not their daughter. It was like a cousin who’d been
orphaned, and so they raised her as their daughter, and she had moved away and
he didn’t see much of her anymore, and things like that, you know? So he had his
bad times, too. He didn’t know how—see, Broyles is the same way. He—he and
Broyles didn’t know how to fight enemies. Now, that’s—that’s one thing is—and
this fellow, Fred Spies, didn’t know—because they—they had—didn’t—they had
never had the experience of the streets. Most of us, you know, we grow up in the
streets, and you learn how to defend yourself. You learn. It goes with the territo-
ry. You don’t know you’re learning it. You just all of a sudden find out, “Yeah, I
can take care of my[self].” They didn’t know how to do that. When an enemy
came after them to hurt them, they didn’t know how to react. They—they didn’t
understand that people were like that. They had big blind spots. I don’t think
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 263 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ Leflar ever understood why McClellan was against him. I don’t think he ever un-
derstood it. I know—I know Broyles never understood why people criticized
him. If only they knew! Kinda like Hillary and—“If they only knew I’m a good
Methodist, why would they say bad things about me?” [Laughs] I don’t under-
stand it, and they didn’t understand it, and Leflar was like that, too. They just
didn’t know how to deal with people who—and Clinton, I think, had it. A lot of
people have that problem, and I think most men don’t have it. I think most men
ought to—they learn it growing up out in the streets, playing with other guys and
having to deal with people who like you and people who don’t like you. And you
find out what your strengths are and your weaknesses, and you find out how to
defend yourself, and you can learn how to take care of yourself in a fight, and
they don’t. It’s very interesting. I took Fred Spies bowling—he asked me to take
him bowling one time. And on the way out to the lanes, he said, “Al, I’m—I’m
ambidextrous.” “Oh.” And first ball, right handed—down there and it was a gut-
ter. Second ball, left handed—it was a gutter. [Laughter] He could throw the
ball in the gutter with either hand. [Laughter] Oh!
SL: That’s good.
AW: How could you not love a guy like that? And a guy bends over and kisses me on
the head. “That’s okay, he’s a friend of mine.” [Laughter] They were all stand-
ing at a urinal. [Laughter]
TM: That is good.
AW: How can you . . .?
SL: Well, okay. Let’s break this stuff down.
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 264 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/ TM: Okay.
SL: It’s 10:00.
AW: Oh, yeah.
SL: It’s gonna be 11:00 before we get outta here.
AW: Well, I’ve gotta make a phone call.
SL: Unless we just move in with ya.
TM: Yeah.
PW: [Laughs]
AW: Well, I tell ya, you’ve taken pretty good care of me . . .
TM: Get the bunks out.
AW: . . . in terms of the food.
TM: Did you see . . .?
[End of Interview] [07:51:30]
[Transcribed and edited by Cheri Pearce Riggs]
Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History, Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries 265 Arkansas Memories Project, Al Witte interview, 04 April 2008 http://pryorcenter.uark.edu/